Kiowa Vengeance
Page 11
Appleford leaned against the barricade and took a deep breath. He was not surprised to see Marsh, tripod under his arm, examining the still-twitching bodies to decide the best camera angles. Even Soo Chow’s Chinese “nephews” were on the line, fighting to defend the helpless of Wolf Creek—but not that bastard Marsh. Appleford tried to spit in contempt, but his mouth was too dry.
“That was just the first charge, boyos,” Corporal Sligo called out. “They was just testin’ us out—they’ll be hittin’ us again, probably soon!”
John Hix stared at the distant Indians. “We thinned ‘em out some, I reckon,” he said, “but there’s a right smart of ‘em still left.”
Benteen noticed some movement off to the east and said, “And maybe a lot more.”
Sheriff Satterlee had clambered down from the roof. He looked at the gunsmith, then followed his line of sight. Another group of Kiowa had appeared.
“Jesus,” Satterlee said. “Get ready!” he called out.
“Wait,” Benteen said. “Look.”
Stone Knife and his men turned to face the new line of Kiowa.
“Hey,” Satterlee said, squinting. “Is that—it is. There’s a soldier with that second bunch.”
“Sheriff!” Sergeant Nagy said, running over. “You see ‘em. That’s the Captain with them others.”
“Dent,” Satterlee said, “with Old Mountain.”
While the men watched from their barricades and rooftops, several members of each group broke away from the main force and met in the middle.
“That’s Charley Blackfeather with ‘em,” Em Charleston said.
“You sure?” Satterlee asked.
“I know Charley when I see him.”
“What are they doin’?” Satterlee said.
“Looks to me like they’re palaverin’,” Hix said.
Old Mountain edged his pony closer to that of his rebellious son Stone Knife. Charley Blackfeather and Dent were close behind; the cavalry captain felt extremely vulnerable, and would much rather have been on the other side of the barricade. On a very, very soft cushion. Charley leaned forward in the saddle and strained to hear the conversation between the two Indians—Old Mountain’s voice was soft, though firm. There was no need for concentration to hear Stone Knife’s angry replies, however.
“You have shamed me, my son,” Old Mountain said in Kiowa.
“You and those other old men shame us all!” Stone Knife responded. “Negotiating with the white soldiers, when our brothers were murdered by those ‘buffalo hunters’! If the soldiers see us acting like women, they will treat us like women!”
“The women of our clan are wiser than you,” his father said. “They know that life is taken, and life is made, and life must continue. White killed our young men during the last moon, our young men killed some of them, the hunters killed some more of us—and now you have killed whites. Our warriors’ blood has been avenged, and balance has been made, but it must stop now. If we keep fighting the balance will be disrupted even more—all the horse soldiers from the fort are coming here even as we speak, and there will be more killing than can ever be answered for.”
“We are not afraid of the horse soldiers,” Stone Knife said, waving his arms angrily. “We can kill all of them, too!”
“You cannot. And even if you could, it would not matter, for that is only one fort of many. If you wipe out this white man’s town, they will send more horse soldiers, and more—there are always more. But there are no more of us. Who will protect our women and children, and elders, when our warriors have all died, no matter how bravely those deaths were met? How will our people survive?”
Charley noted that several of Stone Knife’s warriors were mumbling to one another. The old man’s words were hitting home.
“We are not dogs!” Stone Knife said.
“And we are not wolves,” his father said. “At least dogs protect their village.”
There was more murmuring, and several Kiowas moved their ponies closer to Old Mountain. Stone Knife looked around his band, hoping for support, but found very little. He snarled in frustration.
“Fine, then,” he said. “We will go back. We have done enough—next time they will know, and fear us!” He motioned to his followers, and they all galloped away.
Dent, Charley, and Old Mountain rode slowly toward the town. The chief’s contingent remained still, watching from their ponies.
“Here they come,” Satterlee said. “Guess we’re gonna find out if we got a reprieve or not.”
The three men rode slowly up the street toward the barricade, with men staring down at them from the rooftops along their rifle barrels.
Satterlee stepped out from behind the barricade to meet them. Benteen remained behind, his gun ready.
“Charley,” Satterlee said, “Captain.”
“Sheriff,” Dent said. “This is Old Mountain. He’s managed to convince Stone Knife to take his people back to the reservation.”
The white-haired Indian spoke in a surprisingly even and deep voice. Charley Blackfeather spoke back to him briefly in the same language, then turned to the white men and translated for them.
“The chief says the blood has to stop flowin’, else the wounds ain’t never gonna heal.”
“So it’s all over?” the sheriff asked.
“It’s over,” Dent said.
“For now,” Charley Blackfeather added. “Stone Knife is the kind of fella that likes to pick at scabs.”
Sampson Quick looked at Benteen and said, “Looks like we might have some time to get to know one another after all, good sir.”
“You staying around Wolf Creek, Mister De Courcey?”
“I haven’t quite made my mind up yet, Mister Benteen. My original plan had been to make this town a temporary station and then move on.” They looked out again at Stone Knife and his men, who were almost completely out of sight. “But at least I now have that decision to make.”
Sampson turned back and looked over the town of Wolf Creek. The remaining members of his old gang would have no way of knowing that Keene and Pettibone had not succeeded in their mission to assassinate him, and then both fallen to the Kiowa raiders. If he kept a low profile, a town like this could make an ideal base to operate out of—maybe he could quietly assemble a new gang, or even retire for awhile and work as a legitimate artist. For awhile. He smiled to himself.
“This does seem like a lovely little town,” he said aloud.
Hix was at his shoulder. “It suits me good,” the barber said.
“I reckon it suits us all,” the sheriff said. “But I’ll say one thing, it damn sure does stay lively.”
Dave Benteen looked once more into the distance. The hostile Kiowas had disappeared completely. But Charley Blackfeather’s words still echoed in the gunsmith’s ears—Stone Knife likes to pick at scabs. The town only had a temporary reprieve. Something else was bound to stoke the Kiowas’ ire and put them back on the vengeance trail, it was only a matter of time.
Benteen tore his gaze away from the horizon and turned it on the citizens of Wolf Creek. They had proven themselves to be a bunch of tough customers today.
They’ll be ready.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
1BILL CRIDER
I’m a native Texan and former college teacher and administrator living in scenic Alvin, Texas, near enough to the Texas Gulf Coast to have been through two hurricanes. I’ve written around seventy-five novels in various genres, including both standalone westerns under my own name and series western novels under various house names. My mystery novels featuring Sheriff Dan Rhodes have been appearing just about every year since 1986. I’ve been nominated for the Edgar Award and the Shamus Award for my novels, and I’ve won the Anthony and Derringer Awards for my short crime fiction. My wife, Judy, is my proofreader and constant inspiration. I owe everything to her, and she never lets me forget it. If you want to learn more about us, check out my website at www.billcrider.com or follow my peculiar blog at http://billcrider.b
logspot.com.
JACKSON LOWRY
Jackson Lowry's first western, SONORA NOOSE, won acclaim and was nominated for the 2011 Western Fictioneer's Peacemaker Award for best novel. It also received a 2011 New Mexico Book Awards nomination. A short story, "The Silver Noose," was included in the anthology THE TRADITIONAL WEST and another short story, "Fifteen Dollars," is available for free download from the online store www.robertevardeman.com For more information, see the author's website www.JacksonLowry
KERRY NEWCOMB
Kerry Newcomb was born in Connecticut but had the good sense to be raised in Texas. He is a New York Times reviewed bestselling author of forty novels, two produced plays, a smattering of published poems and the occasional bathroom wall limerick. He is married to Patricia Blackwell Newcomb, PhD and beloved Southern Belle.
ROBERT J. RANDISI
Robert J. Randisi has been called by Booklist “ . . .one of the last true pulp writers.” He has been published in the western, mystery, horror, science fiction and men’s adventure genres. All told, he is the author of 540 books, 54 short stories and the editor of 30 anthologies. He has also edited a Writer’s Digest book, WRITING THE PRIVATE EYE NOVEL. In 1982 he founded the Private Eye Writers of America, and created the Shamus Award. In 1985 he co-founded Mystery Scene Magazine and the American Crime Writer’s League, all with Ed Gorman. He is a co-founder of Western Fictioneers. His newest western is BULLETS & LIES (Berkley 2012), the first book in his Talbot Roper series.
FRANK RODERUS
I live in Florida...but the WEST coast of Florida. I have always been fascinated by the people and the places of our American west and count it a great blessing to be able to make a living writing about them. I have been writing virtually all my life (my first was a short story, a western, written when I was five), full time for more than thirty years after a career as a newspaper reporter. I have been honored with Spur Awards twice and as a finalist six more times. I was also greatly honored to have been chosen as the Western Fictioneers' first president.
TROY D. SMITH
I am from the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee. My work has appeared in many anthologies, and in journals such as Louis L'Amour Western Magazine, Civil War Times, and Wild West. In addition, I’ve written novels in several genres—from mysteries like Cross Road Blues to the Civil War epic Good Rebel Soil. My other Civil War epic, Bound for the Promise-Land, won a Spur Award in 2001 and I was a finalist on two other occasions. Two of my short stories are finalists for this year's Peacemaker Award for western fiction. In a massive lapse of collective judgment, the membership of Western Fictioneers elected me president for 2012. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, and teach American Indian history at Tennessee Tech. My motto is: “I don’t write about things that happen to people, I write about people that things happen to.” My website is www.troyduanesmith.com , and my blog is http://tnwordsmith.blogspot.com
Sample
Wolf Creek: Murder in Dogleg City
PROLOGUE
Laird Jenkins had been in so many saloons, gambling dens, and houses of ill repute across the West that he couldn't even begin to remember all of them. Sometimes it seemed to him that he had spent his entire life breathing in the distinctive yet dubious perfume blended from tobacco smoke, stale beer, whiskey, piss, unwashed human flesh, bay rum, and cheap lilac water.
One thing he knew: the dens of iniquity here in Dogleg City, the less savory area of the settlement known as Wolf Creek, weren't any different from the ones he had visited elsewhere, with one or two exceptions.
The place he was in at the moment, Asa's Saloon, was one of those exceptions. It was owned by a black man, something you didn't see every day. Many of the clientele were black as well, but not all—there were a handful of Mexicans and a few white men who looked down on their luck. Not the sort of place Laird would normally choose to drink in, but he wasn’t really there to drink. He was there to do a little business with Asa Pepper. That business wasn't concluded yet, but Laird thought he had made a good start on it.
Without saying good night to anyone – there wasn't anyone in here that he would want to strike up a social conversation with, as Asa’s customers tended to be the dregs of the town – Laird left the saloon. He paused on the boardwalk just outside to take a deep breath of the night air and clear some of the saloon fumes from his lungs. He was about to head toward the Imperial Hotel, ready to turn in for the night, when an overpowering urge struck him. He turned the other way, toward the nearby alley, and started fumbling with the buttons of his fly.
Damn, he told himself, he wasn't old enough to be plagued like this. He ought to have a few years left, at least, before he started having to hurry these things or else he'd piss his britches.
The darkness of the alley folded around him. He got himself set, ready to relieve his bladder. And then, wouldn't you know it, the blasted thing went balky on him and refused to do anything.
With that to worry him, he almost didn't hear the faint noise of someone moving behind him. Laird didn't particularly like the idea of being disturbed at his personal business like this, and he knew as well that robbers often lurked in alleys near saloons, lying in wait for unwary drunks. His hand moved slightly toward the butt of the Colt on his hip.
But maybe it was nothing. A cat or a rat. Or maybe Asa Pepper had followed him from the saloon, deciding that he wanted to hear more of what Laird had to say about how they could both make some money.
“Mister Pepper?” Laird said without looking behind him. “Is that—”
The muzzle flash split the darkness. A blink of orange flame, there and then gone, and as it lit up the alley something smashed into Laird's back, a hammer-blow almost perfectly centered between his shoulder blades. It drove him forward off his feet. His face smashed into the hard-packed dirt of the alley floor. A fierce pain expanded through him, followed by an even more terrifying numbness. In that brief moment while Laird's muscles still worked, he managed to roll onto his back. Dying in an alley behind a saloon was bad enough. Dying with his face in the dirt and shit and trash of that alley was worse.
Laird tried and failed to draw air into his lungs. Everything was slipping away from him, and he wished he could breathe in that heady saloon fragrance once again, just one more time, just . . .
Ebook Wolf Creek: Book 3: Murder in Dogleg City is only $2.99.
Available or coming soon from Western Fictioneers:
Wolf Creek:
Here you will find many of your favorite authors, working together as Ford Fargo to weave a complex and textured series of Old West adventures like no one has ever seen.
Book 1: Bloody Trail
Book 2: Kiowa Vengeance
Book 3: Murder in Dogleg City
Book 4: The Taylor County War
Book 5: Showdown at Demon's Drop
Book 6: Hell on the Prairie
Coming: Book 7: The Quick and the Dying
Book 8: Night of the Assassins
Book 9: A Wolf Creek Christmas
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