Then Kirby heard a plaintive cry: “Johnny!”
Kirby ran to the thicket. Jeff was still wearing the buffalo robe. “Johnny!” he wailed.
Kirby fell to his knees, hugging the straw-haired little boy, kissing his cheeks and forehead, tousling his hair and crying, “Jeff—you’re all right.”
The boy held Kirby tight. “I want to go home, Johnny. Please, Johnny, I want to go home now.”
“We are going home, Jeff. Everything is all right.”
Jeff hugged his big brother tighter and looked over his shoulder at Swede. The freed boy seemed somehow as scared of his tall rescuer as he had been of the Indians.
Swede was off by himself. His legs were wobbly; he was staggering to stay on his feet. His face was ashen and sick and very young, but his eyes glowed with that fierce violence that Kirby had earlier glimpsed in them. Swede’s deerskin clothes were splashed with some dark, sticky substance, and he was wiping more of the substance from the blade of his bowie knife.
“Swede,” said Kirby, “what happened? What did you do?”
“I did what I had to do,” Swede replied in a harsh, unnatural whisper. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before them Comanches figure out they been tricked.”
* * *
Kirby stirred uncomfortably on the hard ground. He realized he was covered with sweat. He couldn’t get his breath. He sat up, looking around him. All was quiet.
He lay back down, pushing aside his blanket and gazing at the stars with sleepless eyes.
It was a long time till daylight.
10
Swede lay motionless for some minutes, straining his ears for the slight cough, the slip of foot against rock that would signal the presence of unwelcome visitors. Slowly he pulled his blanket down, uncovering the cocked rifle and revolver he had slept with.
He pulled on his scuffed boots, sniffling and scanning the darkness. Dawn was a good hour away. He rose and buckled his leather chaps, his bones creaking in the damp chill.
“Morning, Dancer.”
Dancer tossed his head lightly. Swede laid the rifle against his saddle. He fed and watered Dancer, constantly searching the land on all sides of the dead palo verde tree to which the horse was tethered.
“’Nother tough one today. Sometimes I think we should go into a different line of business—’cept for I don’t know one.”
Swede saddled Dancer and untied him. He wolfed a bite of hard biscuit and gnawed some pemmican, washing them down with a sip of water from his canteen. He didn’t mind eating cold. He’d done it from Shiloh to Camp Douglas prison, and other places just as bad. When he was ten, he’d ridden for two days to fetch a doctor for his mother. His horse had died under him, but he got the doctor back in time to save his mother’s life.
He stopped, looking toward the invisible hills. Was that summer thunder—or was it a gunshot? There it was again, a faint reverberation.
Swede listened but heard no more. Or had there been anything in the first place? Sound played funny tricks in those hills. Whatever it was, he couldn’t stop to worry about it.
“Wonder if we’ve throwed off the posse?” he said to Dancer. “Maybe, maybe not. Best act like we ain’t, though.” He mounted and rode off, still at his steady canter.
* * *
“Let’s go, there. Come on, move!” Kirby walked down the line of sleeping men, kicking them awake.
The bony lawyer, Simpkin, rolled over, rubbing sleep from his well-bred eyes. “What the devil?”
Karl Reichardt was snoring. Kirby kicked the big German’s shins. “Up!”
Karl howled, grabbing his leg and looking about him wildly. “For God’s sake, Mr. Kirby! The sun is not yet up!”
Kirby paid no attention, booting another recumbent form. “Let’s go.”
Anton, the Polish laborer, looked from beneath his blanket and ventured a joke. “Should not we take our time, Mr. Kirby? After all, we are paid by the day.”
There was some laughter. Over his shoulder, Kirby said, “You do what you want. Remember—if you’re not there when I get Burdette, you don’t share the reward.”
Grumbling and cursing, the men shook off their blankets and stumbled to their feet. Karl Reichardt was growing more worried by the minute. “Maniac,” he told Mr. Simpkin. “That is the only word for the man—maniac.”
Those who had not slept in their clothes found them and put them on in the dark. The men gathered their gear, fumbling and dropping things because they were half asleep. Kirby saw Simpkin pull a frying pan from his pack, while Karl addressed a slab of bacon with a long knife.
“Now what are you two doing?” Kirby said.
Mr. Simpkin, whose riding jacket was wrinkled and dirty, did not understand. “Preparing our breakfast, of course.”
“Put that away and saddle your horses.”
That did it for Karl, who felt he must have lost ten pounds yesterday. “Are we not even to be allowed food?” he cried. “Not even in the Prussian Army is such a thing—”
“Eat on the trail,” Kirby told him. He turned. “Silas, check the packs. See they’re on right.”
“Why me?” Silas complained, hauling up his galluses. “You got a nigger; let him do it.”
Across the camp, George stood by his saddled horse, wiping the barrel of his rifle with an oily rag. He gave no evidence of hearing Silas’s remark.
Kirby said, “I told you to do it, Silas.”
After a second, Silas relented. “Oh, all right. It’s too early in the morning to argue.”
Silas turned. Under his breath, he said to his friends, “Nigger probably couldn’t do it right anyway.”
The rim of the eastern sky was turning dull red, a sign of the heat to come. Sparrows traded anxious songs. An owl hooted on his last pass of the night. The smell of sage tinged the damp air. Waiting for the others, Kirby and Black George led their horses a little way from the camp, where the braided scout pointed out Burdette’s trail. The tracks led south over the lightening plain, toward the Quitman Mountains, still hidden in purple shadows.
Kirby was wearing his buckskin jacket. The jacket was black and greasy with age, and many of the fringes were missing. He took his watch, a B.W. Raymond Railroad Special, from the jacket and opened it. It was not yet five-thirty. “We’ve gained about an hour on him, I’d say.”
George agreed. “Hour—hour and a half.”
“I plan to take him early tomorrow afternoon.”
George raised his eyebrows. “He’ll be awful close to the border by then—he might even be across it.”
Kirby removed his jacket and tied it on his saddle. “Then we’ll pick up our pace. No more breaks except dinner. That’s our advantage—we can ride one set of horses until they drop. Swede can’t.”
George managed to look both doubtful and amused at the same time. He jerked a thumb toward the rest of the posse. “You really believe they can handle that kind of pace?”
“I don’t care what they can handle,” Kirby said. “The only thing I care about is getting Burdette.”
11
By mid-morning, Swede was in the foothills. The ground was broken, slowing his pace. The intense heat took his breath away. There was no water, and the only shade was provided by overhanging ledges of rock.
Swede took off his heavy wool shirt and laid it across his saddle. He pushed up the sleeves of his undershirt, but the shirt was old and the sleeves kept falling down. He thought about cutting the sleeves off, but he knew he might be grateful for them later.
He turned in the saddle. “When we get out of this, I’m—”
He stopped, shaken. That was the second time he’d started to speak to the Kid today. The habit was difficult to break. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead. It was a hard to believe the Kid was gone. It was like Swede’s second nature had been taken, like he’d lost a big piece of himself.
He remembered how he’d first seen the Kid—riding out of a Sonoran dust storm with the Juaristas on his trail, escaping the
ruins of Maximilian’s empire. Skinny and proud he’d been, with the choirboy smile that made him look even younger than he was. He was tough, though—he’d fought all through the Civil War, and had been a troop sergeant with the Second Arkansas Cavalry.
Swede had been on the run himself, and the two of them teamed up. In the years since. Swede and the Kid had spent no more than a few days apart. Arkansas had grown into a fine man. Now he was cut down in his prime.
Swede dismounted and led Dancer up a long, gradual rise. Swede’s thighs were sore from yesterday’s marching, and they screamed in protest at the new demands made upon them. Blisters burned his feet.
Reaching the top of the rise, he saw something and stopped.
In the distance, a brightly painted stagecoach lay on its side, with one wheel broken off. The horses were nowhere to be seen. The door of the coach had been torn away, and something was dangling over the sill. Scattered beyond the coach were baggage, clothing, and pale figures that could only be bodies. Buzzards jostled for position around the corpses, with more flying in all the time. A strong smell of decay drifted up the rise.
Swede drew his Winchester from its fringed case and levered it. At the same time his eyes scanned the terrain ahead, searching rocks and brush and folds in the earth.
“Trouble, Dancer. Be ready to run like hell.”
Swede mounted and started warily down the rise. He carried his rifle at the ready, eyes moving.
He circled the camp, passing the scattered ashes of a fire. The buzzards flapped their wings, but they did not interrupt their feeding. The bodies were so mutilated that Swede couldn’t tell their sex from this distance. They hadn’t been dead long, but in this heat a fearsome stench already lay over the area. The worst of the odor seemed to be coming from the stagecoach.
Swede dismounted near the overturned vehicle. He started forward, reins in his left hand, ready to fire and ride out. He passed a torn, crushed hatbox.
The coach was expensive—an Abbot, Downing. Its gaudy red and yellow paint was smashed and splintered and riddled with bullet holes. The gilt scrollwork had been ripped off the roof and windows. The object dangling over the door sill was a woman’s arm.
The arm was stained with blood from a deep gash. The blood had coagulated and turned brown in the sun. As the last drops had rolled down the woman’s hand, they had formed deposits like icicles on the tips of two fingers—the other three fingers were missing. Blue-green bottle flies buzzed on the arm in swarms. The smell was overpowering. Swede had to hold his breath.
Swede stepped forward and looked inside the coach.
What he saw staggered him backward like he’d been shot. Spasms twisted his stomach muscles, bending him double. He gagged, fighting down the urge to vomit.
Slowly he recovered. His stomach relaxed; his breath returned in shallow gulps. Sweat dripped out of his hair and into his eyes. He closed them, not believing such things had been done to a woman. He wondered how much of it she had lived through—all of it, if he knew Comanches. They must have dumped her in the coach when they were finished.
There was a noise behind him. Swede straightened and whirled, rifle level, ready to fire.
A young white woman was standing there. She threw her hands up. “Jesus, mister—don’t shoot!”
12
The girl lowered her hands. Her face had a pugnacious look, sunburned and dirty. Her light reddish-brown hair was disheveled. Her gray skirt was torn in several places, and her blouse was open at the neck.
Swede lowered his rifle. He pulled a canteen from his saddle and cradled the girl’s slender shoulders. “You all right, lady?”
The girl shuddered, her emerald eyes glassy. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“Any more get away?” Swede steadied the canteen as she drank; his eyes flicked around the hills, alert for danger.
The girl gulped the water, then she started choking and coughing and spitting it from her mouth. “No.” She drank again.
“Easy,” Swede said.
When the girl was finished, she pushed the canteen back to Swede. “Thanks.”
“What happened here?”
The girl collected her thoughts, remembering. “I woke way before dawn. I was sleeping off by myself like I sometimes do, and I went for a”—she lowered her eyes—“a walk in the rocks. I was coming back when I heard a shot. Then more shots, followed by screams—the most awful screams. I hid in the rocks for I don’t know how long, too scared to move, trying not to listen to those screams. But it was impossible, it was like my own body was being tom apart, I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming myself. At last it stopped, and I crept back near camp.”
The color drained from the girl’s face. “Just as I got here, the screams started again.”
She swallowed hard. Involuntarily she turned toward the wrecked stagecoach, her breathing grew hoarse. “They had Lucy. They were . . . they were ...”
Her clenched hands flew to her hair. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth opened.
Swede shook her shoulders roughly. “Stop it!”
The girl’s wiry body tightened in Swede’s grip like an iron spring. Then the spring snapped, and she collapsed in his arms.
She sobbed hysterically, while long tremors rent her body. Her fingernails dug into Swede’s strong back. Swede stroked her head and shoulder. He could feel hot tears seeping through his bandana.
At last she grew still. Her grip relaxed. In a show of bravado, she wiped her nose and stood straight, swaying. She turned her wet cheeks to Swede. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I haven’t moved a muscle for hours. And then I saw you . . . but the sun was so hot . . . and I didn’t know if you were real, or if . . .”
The girl’s eyes rolled up in her head. She gave a little cry and fainted in Swede’s arms.
Still on his guard. Swede carried the girl away from the camp and laid her in the scant shade of the rocks. Sinking to one knee, he poured a little of his precious water onto his yellow bandana. He patted the girl’s burning cheeks and neck and laid the bandana across her forehead. He fanned her gently with his hat.
Unconscious, the girl’s face had a vulnerability it had not shown before. She was not beautiful, but there was a pertness to her turned-up nose and her mouth, along with a hint of freckles on her cheeks. She wore no corset, and the shape of her firm breasts showed through her blouse.
After a few minutes, the girl groaned and rolled onto her side. She blinked her eyes open and struggled up on one elbow. “It’s all right. I’m all right now.”
She tried to stand, but Swede held her down. “Take it easy.”
“No, really. I’m fine. Just let me have another drink.”
He handed her the canteen. She drank sparingly this time, as if she knew the value of water in this country. He left her and examined the remains of the campsite. She watched him, wondering who he was, this big man who smelled of leather and horse sweat and moved with such an air of self-confidence.
When Swede returned, he said, “I was hoping to find some whiskey. Comanches is good scroungers, though. I reckon they got it all.” He regarded the girl, rubbing his hand across his stubbly chin. “Unusual traveling company, ain’t it, lady— five women and just one man?”
The girl’s vulnerability disappeared, and hardness showed on her face like a mask. She could have been a different person. “Not so unusual where I come from.”
“I knew it when I saw the painted coach, of course.” Swede walked a few paces off. When he turned back, he was smiling to himself. “Damn, ain’t we a pair, though? You a whore, and me—well, lady, I hate to tell you, but I’m on the run from the law.”
“Oh, shit.”
The girl scrambled unsteadily to her feet. She stared at Swede, then after a second she shrugged and spread her arms. “I’ve only got one thing left to take, but I guess you can have it.”
Swede was not paying attention. He tilted his hat back on his head, thinking hard. He reached a decision quickly. “You’ll have to co
me with me.”
“On one horse?” The girl sounded surprised. “If somebody’s chasing you, doesn’t that mean you’ll be caught?”
“Probably.”
“I ... I don’t know what to say. I mean, I want to get away from here—of course—but I wouldn’t expect a fella in your fix to do this. Not for a ... a woman like me, anyway. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Then don’t. I’m headed for Mexico. I’ll drop you at the first town across the border. We’ll be traveling fast. I apologize in advance for any inconvenience.” Swede pointed with his rifle. “I’d advise you to take off them petticoats. Make it easier on you.”
The girl hesitated. Then, quite unashamed, she lifted her tom skirt and began untying the ribbons of her petticoats. Swede gallantly averted his gaze.
“Hey,” the girl said. “Don’t you even want to know my name?”
Swede did not reply. He was calculating, his eyes searching the sun-baked hills.
“Hey—”
“All right, what’s your name?”
“Rosie Geraghty.” She waited a second. “Well, what’s yours?”
“Swede. Swede Burdette.”
Rosie dropped her last petticoat to the ground. “Oh, yeah, I think I heard of you.” She scratched her long legs, which itched beneath her pantaloons. “Ain’t you a bank robber or a train robber or something?”
“Something like that.”
“You ride with somebody, don’t you? Kid somebody?”
Swede took in his breath. “The Arkansas Kid. He was killed yesterday morning.”
“Oh.” Rosie stood straight and dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Why? You didn’t kill him.”
“Are you always so direct, Mr. Burdette?”
“I try to be.” Swede pulled down his hat. “You got them things off yet?”
Swede tossed Rosie a tom, wide-brimmed straw hat that he had found in the wreckage of the camp. “Wear this—it’ll keep the sun off your head some.”
The Bank Robber Page 6