Nathan Stark, Army Scout

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  * * *

  Even though the sun had just set, the shadows were already growing thick inside the stables. Matoskah knew he could light a lantern if he needed to, but he was almost finished with his chores and didn’t want to go to the trouble if it wasn’t necessary.

  Everything would have been done by now if Hotah and the others had stayed to help him. But they were tired and hungry for their supper and had wandered off, leaving him to make sure all the water troughs were filled. Carrying a bucket, he went to the pump outside, filled it, then stepped back into the gloomy, cavernous building carrying the full bucket when a burly figure stepped out of the shadows in front of him. He had to stop short to keep from running into the man.

  “Just hold it right there, ye little redskinned heathen.”

  The angry voice with its unmistakable Irish accent made Matoskah catch his breath. Sergeant Seamus McCall was blocking his path, and the brutal noncom didn’t sound happy.

  In fact, he sounded like he was mad enough to kill.

  Matoskah tried to step around him. “I have to finish my chores, Sergeant—”

  McCall put a big hand on the young man’s chest to stop him.

  It was like running into a wall, Matoskah thought. He and the sergeant were roughly the same height, but he would never be able to budge McCall.

  “Your chores can wait. I’ve got somethin’ to say to ye, lad, and you’re gonna listen to it. Or rather, I have a question to ask ye.”

  Matoskah swallowed hard. “A ... a question?”

  “Aye. Just why in the hell are ye goin’ around accusin’ me of runnin’ guns to the filthy Sioux?”

  The fear inside Matoskah went up another notch. Somehow, McCall had found out about the conversation he and Mrs. Blaine had had with Lieutenant Allingham. That wasn’t too surprising when he thought about it. Corporal Winston Cahill had been in the outer office, and Cahill was as big a gossip as an old woman. He had eavesdropped and then told someone what he’d heard, and that person told someone else ...

  Until it came to the ears of Sergeant Seamus McCall, and McCall had headed for the stables to confront Matoskah.

  Gathering up his courage, the young man said, “I am not one of your soldiers, Sergeant. I take orders only from the stable master, and I do not have to answer your questions.”

  “No?” McCall seemed more puzzled than angry. “That’s the way it is, is it?”

  “Yes, I—”

  McCall took Matoskah by surprise. His left hand came up fast and cracked across the young man’s face in a backhanded blow that jerked Matoskah’s head around. He staggered backwards and almost fell. Water sloshed from the bucket in his hand, but he held on to its bail and didn’t drop it. When McCall charged him like a maddened bull, Matoskah swung the bucket without thinking about what he was doing. Its wooden side cracked hard against McCall’s head, and more water flew over both of them.

  McCall grunted in pain, but his momentum carried him into Matoskah. The sergeant’s weight was too much for the young man to withstand. Matoskah lost his balance and went over backwards. He landed on his back with McCall on top of him. Unable to breathe because of the bulk pressing down on him, he flailed desperately at McCall with the bucket.

  The noncom raised his left arm to shield himself from the blows, then struck Matoskah on the inside of the elbow with his forearm. Matoskah’s arm went numb, and the bucket slipped from his fingers and clattered away. With it went his last chance of being able to defend himself.

  The next moment, both of McCall’s hands wrapped around Matoskah’s throat and began to squeeze. McCall leaned over, bringing his face so close to Matoskah’s face that the Sioux youth could feel the man’s hot breath and smell the firewater he had drunk sometime recently.

  “Go around spreadin’ lies about me. I’ll teach ye!” McCall laughed. “But you know, and so do I, that they ain’t lies. Ye heard me and Dockery and that Dutchie, Bucher, out there in the woods one night, didn’t ye? Didn’t ye!”

  Matoskah didn’t think McCall actually wanted an answer to that question, but he managed to move his head a little anyway in a semblance of a nod.

  Amazingly, some of the terrible crushing pressure on Matoskah’s throat was relieved. McCall didn’t let go of him, though. “Rumor has it ye told the lieutenant ol’ Hangin’ Dog is liable to attack as soon as he gets his hands on those guns. We had a deal with the red bastard! He wouldn’t bother the fort until a time when Dockery an’ Bucher an’ me were all away from here. But you’re sayin’ he’s gonna wipe out the whole place when the sun comes up in the mornin’!”

  McCall’s grip was loose enough for Matoskah to talk. In an agonized whisper, he said, “I ... I do not know ... but I believe ... it is what he will do.”

  “You know what, lad? I believe it, too. Do ye know why? Because it’s just my luck! Dockery an’ Bucher are gone, the sons o’ bitches, but here ol’ Seamus sits, waitin’ to be massa-creed by the dirty heathens. Well, I’m not gonna stand for it, do ye hear? By mornin’, I’m gonna be far away from here. I’ll give up my final share of the money to keep me hair!” His fingers began to tighten again. “Now all I have to do is shut ye up, so ye can’t tell anyone where I’ve gone ...”

  Matoskah tried to thrash around enough to get free, but McCall weighed too much. He couldn’t dislodge the burly noncom. And McCall was choking him tighter and tighter, until red balls of fire began erupting behind Matoskah’s eyes and he knew that in seconds he would be dead.

  Then the entire world seemed to explode.

  CHAPTER 36

  Delia heard grunting inside the stable as she approached, then a clatter as if someone had dropped a bucket. She had thought at first she was hearing someone working in there, but as the noises continued, she realized a struggle was going on.

  She walked faster, but her steps were light on the hard ground, almost silent.

  Just inside the door, she paused to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. She heard a harsh voice speaking quietly and moved closer to an irregular dark shape she spotted in the aisle between the rows of stalls.

  No, not one shape. Two. One man was kneeling on top of another, and from the look of his arms, he had his hands around the second man’s throat. The only reason for him to be doing that was if he were trying to choke the second man to death ...

  That shocking realization was followed instantly by another. The voice she heard belonged to Sergeant Seamus McCall. ... and the second man had to be Billy, which meant McCall had found out about the visit she and Billy had paid to Lieutenant Allingham, and he intended to dispose of the witness. As she reached into the bag and closed her hand around the Schofield’s grips, she heard him admit that he was part of the gunrunning scheme along with Sergeant Dockery and Dietrich Bucher.

  She had the proof she needed but had to stop McCall from murdering Billy!

  She dropped the bag, pointed the gun at the ceiling, pulled back the hammer until it locked into place, and squeezed the trigger. The boom was deafening, and the recoil might have torn the revolver out of her grip if she hadn’t been using both hands to hold it.

  “Let go of that boy!” she cried. Her ears were still ringing so badly from the Schofield’s report that her own words sounded muffled and distant to her.

  She saw McCall rise and start toward her. “Damn it, Delia, why’d ye have to go an’ stick your pretty little nose in where it don’t belong? Gimme that gun—”

  He would kill her, too, in order to protect himself, she thought. The shot would bring more of the soldiers to the stables, so McCall would have to act quickly. If he murdered her and then killed Billy, he could claim that Billy was the one responsible for her death.

  All McCall would have to say was Yeah, I came in and saw that the savage had killed poor Mrs. Blaine, so I grabbed him and done for him, ’fore he could murder me, too. Some people might suspect he wasn’t telling the truth, but no one would be able to prove it. And since it was always easy to blame an Indian for killing a white, in t
he end everyone would accept McCall’s story.

  That knowledge flashed through Delia’s mind in less than a second. Her thumb was already on the Schofield’s hammer. As McCall lunged at her, she drew it back and pulled the trigger again.

  He was so close the flame licking out from the gun muzzle touched his chest. He flung his arms out to the sides and went over backwards as the slug drove deep into his body. Delia screamed, unable to control the reaction, and staggered backwards. The Schofield slipped from her fingers and thudded to the ground.

  Billy was beside her quickly, one hand holding his throat. “Mrs. Blaine,” he croaked, the tortured voice showing how close McCall had come to choking him to death. “Are you all right?”

  Before Delia could answer, a man yelled, “Mrs. Blaine! Get out of the way! Kill the Indian!”

  “No!” she cried. She flung her arms out, much like McCall had done when she’d shot him, and threw herself in front of Billy. “Don’t shoot! He hasn’t done anything! ”

  A soldier with a lantern appeared in the stable’s open doors. The light revealed two more soldiers with rifles who had rushed up in response to the first shot.

  When the lantern’s glare fell over McCall’s body, the man holding it up shouted, “Good Lord! The savage has killed Sergeant McCall!”

  “No!” Delia insisted. “I shot him! I shot him! He was going to kill me and Billy!”

  “Step out of the way, ma’am,” one of the riflemen ordered. “This mad dog needs to be put down.”

  “Aren’t you listening to me? Billy didn’t hurt anybody. McCall was trying to murder him. McCall’s a gunrunner—”

  The three soldiers suddenly stepped aside as a fourth man strode into the stable. Delia recognized the tall, slender figure of Lieutenant Marcus Allingham.

  The lieutenant had arrived in time to hear what she was saying and exclaimed, “Not this blasted gunrunning business again! Mrs. Blaine, I thought I had made you understand that such a thing just isn’t feasible.” Allingham stared in shock at McCall’s body. “And now the Indian boy has killed poor Sergeant McCall!” He gestured curtly to the other men. “Take him into custody and lock him in the guardhouse.”

  “Lieutenant, listen to me! You can’t—”

  “Sure you wouldn’t rather us just shoot him, Lieutenant?” one of the soldiers asked.

  “We’re going to handle this matter in a proper fashion. That means a trial.” Allingham’s voice hardened. “And then a hanging.”

  Delia looked down at the ground. The Schofield lay near her feet. She thought she could pick it up before any of the soldiers could reach her ...

  “Mrs. Blaine, no,” Billy said in a low voice. “Do not make more trouble for yourself.”

  She turned to him, saw that his expression was strained, but oddly enough, he seemed fairly composed.

  “Billy ... Matoskah ... we can’t let them lock you up—”

  He stopped her by shaking his head. “It does not matter.” He glanced at Lieutenant Allingham’s stern, angry visage. “There will be no trial until Colonel Ledbetter returns to the fort.”

  “That’s right,” Allingham snapped. “The colonel will want to handle this terrible affair himself, I’m sure.”

  Everyone in the stable knew what he meant. Colonel Ledbetter would want the credit for trying and hanging an Indian who had killed a white soldier. It would make him look that much better back in Washington.

  But as Delia met Billy’s dark eyes, she knew what it really meant. Waiting for Ledbetter to return insured that whatever was going to happen with Hanging Dog would have occurred by then. The whole thing might well be moot ... rendered so by hordes of well-armed Sioux warriors pouring into the fort and slaughtering everyone they saw.

  The two soldiers with rifles strode over and grabbed Billy by the arms.

  As they shoved and dragged him roughly toward the entrance, he glanced one last time at Delia and said, “Remember ... the chapel.”

  Then they were gone.

  Lieutenant Allingham started to pick up the revolver. “That’s mine,” Delia said sharply. “Or rather, my late husband’s.”

  “Why did you bring it out here?” Allingham asked. “If you hadn’t done that, the Indian wouldn’t have been able to take it away from you and use it to slay Sergeant McCall.”

  Delia didn’t answer him. She bent, grasped the gun, and slid it back into her bag. As soon as possible, she would replace the rounds she had fired with a couple of the extra cartridges. She had ten shots left. That wouldn’t be enough if Hanging Dog attacked, but the other two bullets wouldn’t have made any difference.

  As long as she had one left at the end, that was all that mattered.

  * * *

  With Nathan and Red Buffalo to guide them by the stars, it was next to impossible that they and Doc Lightner would get lost during the night as they rode toward Fort Randall. They couldn’t go as fast as they had been during the day for a couple reasons. Despite the rest, the horses were still tired and could only be pushed so hard, and the darkness made it more difficult to see the ground ahead of them. If a horse were to step in a prairie dog hole and snap a leg, that would be disastrous.

  Because of the slowed-down pace, Nathan’s impatience grew steadily. They had to stop completely now and then to let the horses blow, and every time they did, he lifted his head and listened intently, dreading to hear the sound of gunfire in the distance. However, the night was quiet, and the world seemed to be asleep.

  That tranquility would not last, he sensed.

  The stars wheeled through the night sky, and it was well after midnight by the time he and his companions reached the ford across the Missouri River.

  As they rode across with the muddy water splashing quietly around their mounts’ legs, Nathan said, “Another couple hours and we ought to be there.”

  “We will arrive before dawn,” Red Buffalo said. “If Hanging Dog doesn’t attack until then, we’ll have a chance to warn everyone and get ready.”

  Doc Lightner said, “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t sure we’d make it. It seemed like, with so many things having gone wrong already, something else was bound to.”

  “We’re not there yet, Doc,” Nathan said, “and don’t say anything else, or you’re liable to jinx us.”

  “I’m a man of science, Captain, not of superstition.”

  Red Buffalo chuckled. “Well, I’m just a redskin who believes in bad medicine and bunk like that, but I agree with Stark, Doc. No need for us to tempt fate.”

  “Fine,” Lightner said as they came up out of the river. “Let’s just get back there.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Nathan said.

  They set a little faster pace now that they were in the last stretch. Horses and men alike were exhausted, but urgency drove them on. Nathan saw a thin, pale line of gray on the eastern horizon and knew what it meant. They were in a race now—a race against the onrushing dawn.

  Finally, Nathan spotted what looked like a light far ahead. At least one lamp was kept burning all night in the guardhouse. Since there were no farms or ranches between where they were and the fort, he knew that had to be Fort Randall. They had made it.

  A few minutes later, Doc Lightner asked excitedly, “Is that a light I see? Is that the fort?”

  “It sure is, Doc,” Red Buffalo replied. “I spotted it a ways back, and I’m sure Nathan did, too.”

  “Yeah, but that’s all right, Doc,” Nathan said. “You’re not a scout. You’re not supposed to be eagle-eyed like us.”

  The surgeon said, “I don’t hear any shooting. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “It sure is,” Nathan agreed.

  The night was quiet, and that was indeed a good thing. But if what Red Buffalo had overheard back in the Sioux village was true—and there was no reason to think it wasn’t—the sounds of gunfire and war cries would soon fill the air.

  Nathan urged his borrowed army mount on, asking the animal for its last reserves of strength.
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  They slowed as they neared the fort, not wanting to spook some trigger-happy green recruit on sentry duty into shooting them. The guardhouse was at the northern end of the parade ground, so that was where the riders approached. Not surprising, as they slowed their horses to a walk someone called the usual challenge, “Halt! Who goes there?”

  “It’s Dr. Lightner,” the surgeon replied, “along with the scouts, Captain Stark and Moses Red Buffalo.”

  “Advance and be recognized, Doctor.”

  A match scraped to life as Nathan, Red Buffalo, and Lightner walked their horses forward. Its flaring light illuminated them enough for the sentry to know that Lightner had told the truth. He shook out the match and dropped it, then straightened and saluted Lightner, since the post surgeon was also a captain. Lightner returned it with as much precision as he could manage, considering how exhausted he was.

  “Is the rest of the column with you, Doctor?” the guard wanted to know.

  “It’s just the three of us. We need to speak to Lieutenant Allingham immediately.”

  “I imagine he’s still asleep—”

  “We’ll wake him up.” Lightner reined his horse past the sentry and headed along the edge of the parade ground toward the headquarters building at the other end. Since Allingham was in command of the fort temporarily, he should be sleeping there.

  They dismounted in front of The House. Nathan’s legs betrayed him for a second, but he caught himself. Red Buffalo and Lightner weren’t too steady, either. The horses stood with their sides heaving and their heads drooping. Nathan felt like doing that himself, but their chore wasn’t over yet.

  The three of them made it up the steps to the porch. Lightner pounded a fist on the door.

  After a couple of minutes, a sleepy-looking Corporal Cahill, wearing a hastily pulled on pair of uniform trousers over his long underwear, answered the summons and peered out at them with bleary eyes as he held a lamp. “Doctor?” he said in astonishment. “What—”