A Knife in the Heart

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  The captain of guards fished out his chaw, bit off a mouthful, and after starting to return it to his vest pocket, held it toward Fallon.

  “No, thank you, Tim,” Fallon said. “Might make me sick.”

  The guard laughed, good-naturedly and honestly, and let the chaw fall into a deep pocket. “I don’t reckon it’d make you sick, Warden.”

  “The name,” Fallon said, “is Hank.” He held out his hand.

  They shook, both grinning widely now, respect mutual. “You’re right, Hank.” O’Connor tested the name, decided he liked it, and nodded his dirty head with enthusiasm. “I don’t reckon I do know you at all. But I think I’m gonna like getting to know you, sir.”

  “The feeling’s mutual, Tim.” He urged his horse a little faster. “Let’s catch up with Buffalo Bones and the others.”

  “You bet,” Big Tim O’Connor said.

  And they gave their mounts plenty of rein, kicked the sides hard, loped up the hill, and felt the wind blasting their faces as the horses moved into gallops, and the rolling prairie swept past them.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  They sat in their saddles, Fallon, O’Connor, Wilson, and Raymond, waiting, the Kansas wind whipping their faces. Down below, Buffalo Bones knelt in the grass, his pinto pony ground-reined a few yards behind him.

  “He’s been there for ten minutes,” Wilson whispered. “What the hell’s he doin’?”

  “His job,” Fallon said and smiled. He did not know this Buffalo Bones, an old black man, head shaved to a shiny mahogany, feeling the land, those old eyes scanning west and south. But Fallon knew his kind. He had worked with men like this in the Indian Nations, scouts, often former slaves who had found a home with the Creeks and Seminoles, the Choctaws, but rarely with the Cherokees. Many of the Cherokees had been slaveholders before the War of the Rebellion, and a number of black men did not want anything to do with Cherokees. Fallon had even served with a former slave, a deputy marshal named Bass Reeves, the only federal lawman of his race—and, by Fallon’s estimation, the best lawman who rode with Judge Parker’s court. The last Fallon had heard, Bass Reeves was still wearing a badge and bringing in felons by the score. They didn’t make them like that anymore. Buffalo Bones, Fallon figured, was from the same mold.

  “What’s he in for?” Fallon asked.

  “Robbed an Army paymaster,” Big Tim O’Connor said, still massaging his ear from Fallon’s first blow.

  Fallon looked away from the scout and locked on the captain of guards. “While he was serving in one of the Negro regiments?”

  O’Connor shook his head. “Nah. He was out of the Tenth Cavalry by then. If what I recollect is true, he was a first sergeant for almost like forever, joined up with those Negro regiments was just gettin’ formed sometime right after the War Between the States. Don’t know exactly why he got out of the Army—if he was kicked out or left on his own accord—but he was out when he took to the owlhoot trail. Payroll was headed to Fort Sill down south in the Indian Territory. Six guards. He took it alone.”

  “Nobody hurt?” Fallon asked.

  “Just the Army’s pride. One old colored man gets the best of six white troopers, took the wagon, and left the troopers and the paymaster afoot.” O’Connor chuckled. “Problem with Buffalo Bones was he didn’t know what to do with the wagon. Went to a cathouse in one of them all-colored towns, left the wagon parked out front. Almost like he wanted to be caught.”

  “How long has he been in Leavenworth?”

  “Eighteen years, if my math’s right,” O’Connor said. “Seven more to go.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” the captain replied. “I’ve been here twelve years, and he has always been just ol’ Buffalo Bones.”

  “He’s waving,” the guard named Raymond said.

  And they rode down to join the scout, who had moved from where he had studied the ground, and swung onto his black-and-white pony.

  Buffalo Bones pointed east. “The fastest one took off that way.”

  “That’d be Walburn,” O’Connor said.

  “Who doesn’t swim,” Fallon said.

  “Right.”

  “So why is he going toward the Missouri?”

  “Pig farm,” the old black man said.

  The guard Raymond laughed. “He want some barbecue?”

  “He wants horses,” Fallon answered. “Mules. Something to ride.”

  The guards stared at Fallon in wonder, but Ol’ Buffalo Bones grinned and let his bald head bob in agreement. “He’ll take what he can get.” His left hand pointed west. “Meet up with them other two probably in some trees or at the pond.”

  “So,” Wilson said, “we ought to go after Loder and Turner. Catch them. Wait for Walburn to return.”

  “No,” Fallon said. “We go after Walburn.”

  “Why?” Wilson asked.

  “Because if he has a horse, or a mule, or even just a jenny ass, he might decide to give up on his pards and hightail it to the Indian Nations.”

  “The others are afoot,” Big Tim O’Connor agreed.

  “They’ll be easier to track down—unless they find some other homestead.”

  Fallon turned his horse east and kicked the black’s sides. The others joined him, moving their horses slowly but at a steady pace.

  “Buffalo Bones?” Raymond asked. “How do you know there’s a pig farm yonder way?”

  It was Fallon who answered. “Can’t you smell it?”

  Ol’ Buffalo Bones let out a throaty belly laugh and nudged his horse into a lope. “Y’all stay back,” he called out. “Just keep restin’ ya hosses. Till I signal y’all.”

  * * *

  Leviticus Deuteronomy Johnston had Walburn covered in pig dung, while his wife, Ruth, and his kids, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, cheered for their pa, while piglets, sows, and hogs scurried about the large, stinking, and disgusting pen. The farmer, wearing mucking boots and stained overalls, pressed a fowling piece against Walburn’s groin, then used his left boot to sink the inmate’s head underneath the slop and manure.

  A mule drank from a bucket in the middle of the yard, and a blind burro urinated by the gate to the pigpen, which the two oldest boys, Ezra and Nehemiah, stood in front of, staring as the posse rode into the yard.

  Fallon swept off his hat and bowed to the wife, introduced himself and his guards, and turned back to the pig farmer. “Sir,” he called out, “we’ll be glad to take Mr. Walburn off your hands.”

  “He tried to steal Matthew and Mark, by golly,” the farmer said. “I will kill him now and feed him to Colossians and Thessalonians.” He nodded at two of the biggest hogs Fallon had ever seen.

  Wife and children from the Old Testament. Animals from the New. Fallon felt blessed that his parents had not raised pigs in eastern Kansas.

  “If you shoot him,” Fallon said, “they won’t let you collect a reward.”

  The old farmer looked up. “Reward?”

  Fallon nodded. “He escaped from the Leavenworth prison. Twenty-five dollars for his return. Alive.”

  Ten minutes later, the dung-covered Walburn was being marched by Wilson north toward Leavenworth. They had drawn lots, and Wilson had lost. He let the reeking prisoner get a good twenty yards ahead of him, and Fallon wrote out a receipt for Mr. Johnston to deliver to the comptroller of the new Leavenworth federal penitentiary the next time he brought some pork to the market.

  “Thank you for your service,” Fallon told the Johnstons, and he let Ol’ Buffalo Bones ride west first.

  * * *

  Turner and Loder were not incompetent. They had managed to get about seven or eight miles from Leavenworth, and one of them had enough outdoors skills to have snared a jackrabbit. But neither, Fallon decided, had much for brains. They did not need Ol’ Buffalo Bones to find the two remaining escapees. They saw the smoke from the fire where Loder and Turner roasted the rabbit wafting from the grove of trees in a small depressi
on that caught water. They also smelled the meat.

  “That’s a whole lot better than pig dung,” Big Tim O’Connor said. He nudged his horse closer to Raymond’s and held out his right hand. “I’ll take the Mauser.”

  The guard pulled the bolt-action rifle from the scabbard and handed it to the big man.

  “Let them eat their supper,” Fallon told them. “Then we’ll take them.”

  “Why?” O’Connor asked.

  “Men think clearer when they have a full stomach,” Fallon said. “Hungry men are desperate. I figure they’ll be more likely to surrender after they’ve eaten.”

  The big man shook his head but laughed. “I might think clearer, too, if I had something to eat.”

  Fallon dismounted and opened one of the saddlebags. “You boys are in luck. My wife made me dinner for my first day on the job.”

  * * *

  “They’s kickin’ out the fire,” Ol’ Buffalo Bones said from the crest of the small hill.

  Fallon shimmied up the incline, looked over the tall grass, and studied the scene. “Getting restless,” he said. “Wondering what is taking their pard so long.”

  The black man nodded his bald head in agreement. “They’ll give up on him soon enough, boss. Start runnin’ some more.”

  “Easiest thing to do,” Big Tim O’Connor said from where their horses were hobbled. “Is for me to shoot them from here.”

  Fallon was already crawling down. “Yeah, that would be easy enough. But not nice.”

  “Nice ain’t in my . . .” He paused, thinking.

  Fallon ended the sentence. “Vocabulary.”

  The captain laughed. “I reckon. But we ain’t gonna be able to get around them without them seeing us. Not enough cover. We can call out for them to surrender. And when they run, I can likely hit them.”

  “I have a better idea,” Fallon said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Fallon removed his coat, laid it across the saddle of the scout’s pinto, and then hooked his hat over the horn. When he turned to Ol’ Buffalo Bones, he said, “Take off your clothes.”

  The old man’s jaw dropped open. A moment later, he said in a dry whisper, “How’s that, boss?”

  “Your pants and shirt. Prison uniform. I’ll put those on, lead two of our horses toward their camp.”

  Raymond and O’Connor exchanged glances, and before O’Connor could start to argue, Fallon explained.

  “I’m the closest to Walburn’s size. They see me, in a prison uniform, bringing two horses, they’ll think they’re about to be delivered. That’ll get me close enough.”

  Shaking his head, O’Connor protested, “They get you, they got themselves a hostage.”

  “They won’t get me.” Fallon had his shirt off.

  “They’ll recognize you before you get close enough to pound their brains out,” O’Connor said.

  “Right. And they’ll let me keep coming to them because they’ll figure those two horses are their best way of getting out of the jam they find themselves in.” He slipped off the suspenders while using his left foot to start prying off one boot, which he kicked toward Loder.

  “They might have a gun,” Loder said.

  Fallon shook his head. “They haven’t been to a farm.”

  “They certainly have a weapon,” O’Connor chimed in.

  “I’ve never met an inmate anywhere who didn’t have one.” He nodded at the captain and removed his pants. “You’ll be up here with that Mauser. If something goes wrong, you’ll get your chance to be a hero. Just don’t miss your aim and hit me by mistake.” He stood in his underdrawers and socks, and glared at the black trusty.

  “Get out of your duds, Buffalo Bones. We’re burning daylight.”

  “They ain’t gonna fit you, boss,” the old black man said.

  “They’ll do the job.”

  * * *

  He took the pinto and the black, leaving Ol’ Buffalo Bones’s saddle and bridle behind, and slipped a hackamore around the small mare’s neck to lead it. The chances of a pig farmer having two saddles seemed remote, Fallon had determined, and if the two remaining convicts had any sense, they might grow suspicious. Fallon rode the black, hatless, head bent, but eyes forward.

  When he saw movement in the trees, he wet his lips, raised his right hands just enough and waved sideways, letting Loder and Turner know he was coming. He made himself look awkward on the horse, because from what he had seen about Walburn, the man didn’t look like he had been on horseback too often. On the other hand, not much about an escaped convict, covered in pig manure and wailing like a newborn baby, impressed anyone back at the Johnston farm. So why had Loder and Turner sent Walburn to bring back horses?

  One of the men waved back.

  And that gave Fallon the answer.

  “These boys,” he whispered to the black gelding, “are imbeciles.”

  But as the black covered the distance, the one on Fallon’s right pointed and said something to the other. That caused the second man, the stoutest of the two, or even three if you considered Walburn, even when the latter had been covered with manure, to step forward, and bring his left hand above his eyes to shield him from the sun. When the left hand lowered, that man said something to the short one, then let his right hand slip inside the trousers of his prison pants. The short one raised his head and began scanning the countryside.

  All right, Fallon figured, so they know I’m not Walburn. He did not let the black slow its gait.

  He moved into the small depression, knowing that O’Connor had a clear view from the higher ground, and likely had one of the two felons in the sights of the Mauser. The two escapees had spread apart now, and Fallon reined up, with the pinto moving a little ahead until Fallon jerked on the end of the hackamore.

  The short one had his right hand inside the pocket of his prison jacket, and now he brought it up hip level so that Fallon could see the impression of a gun barrel.

  “Just keep ridin’, mistah,” the short one said with a snarl. “Or I’ll cut you down right where you sit.”

  “Just do like Turner says,” the stout one, Loder, said, and he brought the handmade knife out of his pants pocket.

  “Raise your hands,” Turner said.

  “I raise my hands,” Fallon told them, “I drop the hackamore. And the pinto leaves you with one horse.”

  “You just come then.” Loder beckoned him forward with the flashing knife.

  Fallon let the horses bring him to the escapees, Turner on his right, Loder on the left.

  “Where’s Luther?” Loder asked.

  Fallon said, “Last time I saw him, he was covered in crap and walking back to Leavenworth.”

  “I tol’ you it was a dern-fool plan, Marvin,” Turner said.

  “Shut up.” Loder waved the knife toward Fallon. “Who are you, buster? And how many is with ya?”

  “My name’s Fallon.”

  Loder took a step back, glanced at Turner, and then grinned. “The new boss of Leavenworth?”

  Fallon’s head bobbed.

  “Horse apples,” Turner said. “No warden would come out here alone.”

  “Boys,” Fallon said. “Captain O’Connor has a Mauser trained on you right now. There’s nowhere for you to run, so let’s just start heading back to the prison. I’d like to be home before it gets too dark.”

  “If you’re the warden,” Loder said, “you might come in real handy.” He laughed, spit, and turned to his partner. “We got ourselves a ticket to Mexico, Sylvester. Get down off that gelding, Boss Fallon. Or I let Sylvester give it to you in the belly. Ever seen a man gut-shot?”

  “Just the ones whose bellies I put bullets in,” Fallon said, letting go of the hackamore and the reins to the black. He dived out of the saddle, using the stirrup to boost himself like a cannonball toward Loder.

  Loder raised the knife, more as a defensive measure, and Fallon’s left shoulder slammed into the stout man’s chest, driving him into the ground and sliding partly down the slight
hill. As the man gasped for breath, Fallon came up, used his right knee to pin Loder’s arm down. His left fist then smashed the man’s nose. That caused Loder to release his grip on the knife, and Fallon deftly swept it up and sprang to his feet.

  Turner had brought his hand out of the jacket pocket and dropped the piece of kindling he had hoped Fallon would think was a pistol. He swore and tried to find the reins to the black. That spooked the pinto, which loped back toward Ol’ Buffalo Bones, O’Connor, and Raymond.

  Fallon halfway expected the Mauser to open up, but the captain of guards held his fire. Perhaps he had no clear shot, not wanting to hit a horse by accident or even Fallon. Turner snagged the reins, but the black leaped back, snorting, slightly rearing, and the leather whipped out of the convict’s hands, burning his palm and leaving him screaming and trying to shake the hurt out of his hand. He spun, hearing Fallon, and swung out with his left. That blow was easily deflected, and Fallon rammed his knee upward and into the man’s groin. A gasp, a groan, and a whimper, and Turner slowly sank into the earth, his eyes rolled back into his head. He fell onto the guts and skins of a rabbit, and lay next to the smoldering ruins of a campfire.

  Fallon turned, waved his hands over his head, and caught his breath. He glanced at the two men, then moved slowly and gathered the reins to the black. Rubbing the horse’s neck, he whispered compliments to the horse, and looked up across the prairie. Ol’ Buffalo Bones, in his prison undergarments and boots, ran toward the pinto that was almost to him. Raymond walked down the hill, carrying the Mauser, and Captain Big Tim O’Connor rode Raymond’s mount, replacing the high-powered rifle with his favored sawed-off shotgun in his right hand.

  Fallon massaged the knuckles in his right hand and assayed the damages. Loder had rolled over and was spitting out blood and snot onto the grass. Turner clutched his privates, and stared hopelessly up at Fallon.

  “That”—he coughed out the words—“that . . . wasn’t . . . fair.” He groaned and lay whimpering.

  “Life’s not fair, either,” Fallon told him, and while waiting for the rest of the posse to join him, he began removing the tight-fitting prison uniform of Ol’ Buffalo Bones. He figured the old man would want his clothes back pretty soon, and Fallon hoped Raymond had the good sense to bring Fallon’s own duds with him.