Tsoyio’s hands moved. Four Elks’s did not.
“He is welcome to coffee,” Story said, but the Lakota turned his horse around before Tsoyio could make the sign, and the rest of the warriors followed him into the darkness.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
“Four drops of carbolic acid,” Dr. Mathews said. “Milk punch. Ice.” Sighing, he lifted the tin cup to his mouth, only to realize he had not refilled it with coffee. “No one has any idea how to cure this terrible illness.”
“Eat fish,” Doc Sparhan said with a smile. “That’s why folks don’t get sick on Fridays.”
The fire burned furiously, but the chimney sucked most of the heat with the smoke out of the cabin. Six more patients had been brought in during the day, though Dr. Justice and others decided to keep theirs either at the homes of the sick or in the office.
And the first day was just ending.
“I read in Scientific American,” Dr. Mathews said, “that we should heat pitch tar on a flat iron, and blow the smoke through a funnel into a patient’s mouth for several minutes. Six times a day, more if necessary. After that put ice pieces all the way to the roots of the patient’s tongue.” He sighed. “That was in Scientific American. Humans and doctors, for we are not human, will grasp at anything.”
Seth Beckstead shook his head. “I knew a man in Baltimore who said breathing fumes from burning sulfur deeply would cure him.” Beckstead heard the braying mule and jingling trace chain and knew someone was bringing in another patient, so he pulled himself to his feet and walked to the door.
“Did it cure him?” Mathews asked.
“Oh, yes.” Beckstead opened the door. “We buried him.” He saw the torches, a lantern, and stepped out, pulling the door closed to keep at least some semblance of warmth inside.
Two newly appointed deputies moved to the back of a buckboard and pulled a stretcher from the back. A lantern in the front of the wagon moved toward Beckstead and the cabin. When the arm raised, Beckstead recognized the face of Thomas Meagher.
“Governor.” Beckstead nodded.
“Doctor. Two more. A thirteen-year-old boy from Pine Grove.” That was the settlement between Virginia City and Summit. “And Miss Bass, the schoolteacher.”
“It might have started at the school,” Beckstead said. “Ask Dr. Justice and that nuisance in Nevada City to check all families of children in the new school. We might be able to stop this . . . if that’s how this monster spreads.”
Beckstead stepped back to open the door, letting the stretcher-bearers bring in the child. Like the war, all over again, except instead of bringing in men to scream as a saw cut through bone, these were children and ladies, too. The girl, he saw at a glance, already suffered from bull throat. She would likely require a tracheotomy to avoid paroxysmal spasms, violent tossing, gasping, suffocation.
Two other men unloaded Miss Bass, but one swore, whispered something, and they slid the stretcher back into the Studebaker. “This one’s bound for Tibbetts,” a man said.
When Beckstead stepped into the street and started for the wagon, those two men hurried away. Even the wagon driver stepped down and grabbed the harness to the mule. Meagher followed Beckstead, but kept a cautious distance.
Beckstead found his stethoscope, and when Meagher raised his lantern, the woman’s eyes, staring but not seeing, and her mouth, open in desperation to suck in one more breath, told Beckstead everything. “Yes.” Beckstead lowered the stethoscope. “She is gone.”
“War,” the Irishman said, “was never like this.”
Oh, but it was, Beckstead wanted to tell him, to remind him of the dysentery, measles, cholera, and diphtheria he had seen, in addition to the savagery and agony of battlefield deaths—and the ceaseless amputations.
He started back for the cabin, but stopped and turned back to the acting governor.
“Governor, have you seen Missus Story?”
“No. Not in some time,” Meagher whispered. Raising his head, he must have read Beckstead’s face. “I guess she’s well, Doctor. She and the little girl. But I shall check on them both before I retire.”
Beckstead smiled.
“Doctor?” Meagher asked. “How do we fight this?”
“Like we fought the rebels,” Beckstead said. “Like Nelson Story fought the banditti. Attack without delay.” His voice faded as he spoke. “Without mercy. Don’t overlook a cough, a cold, croup. The only way to beat this is to catch it early.”
Sighing, Beckstead nodded at Meagher and returned to the cabin, hospital, morgue.
* * *
Molly McDonald leaned against the makeshift pillow jammed between the spokes of the wagon wheel and let out a contented sigh.
“Your beau might not have a heart,” she told Constance, who lounged underneath the wagon, “but he does have a soul.”
“He’s not my beau, damn you,” Constance said.
Molly laughed. The sun moved overhead, yet they remained at the Powder River, cattle scattered, a few boys fishing downstream. Nelson Story had promised those Indians that they wouldn’t hunt game, but the Sioux didn’t eat fish, so what the hell. Oh, Story still had the remuda well protected, and the oxen and mules were kept in camp behind the wagons—stinking up the place—but he had given the men at least half a day off.
It would soon be ending. Bill Petty started dragging the harness for his team from underneath his wagon.
Yeah, they’d be making their way to Fort Reno, which Story figured it couldn’t be that far up the river. That, Molly knew, was why Story had let the men relax. Indians wouldn’t be dumb enough to attack this close to a military post.
Petty dragged his rig, straightened, turned, opened his mouth, and slammed against the front of the wagon, tripping over the tongue, screaming before he hit the ground.
“Son of a bitch,” Molly roared, realizing an arrow jutted out of Petty’s shoulder.
* * *
All had been so peaceful—except for the stink of mule dung and Molly’s incessant babbling—when Constance Beckett’s world plunged into chaos. Hooves thundered, someone shrieked, Molly cursed and scrambled to her feet. A rifle roared. As Constance rolled over and crawled from underneath the wagon, she heard the cries, yips, singing. A mule brayed. Oxen snorted. Something thudded against the wagon.
The cattle ran.
Constance rose, tried to take everything in. Molly struggled to unfasten one of her bags, so she could fetch a pistol. Copper-skinned men with black hair and braids—bodies painted in myriad colors—rode about the camp, and around the longhorns. Last night, she had counted maybe a dozen, perhaps not even that many, Indians. Many more than that now struck the camp.
“Get down.” . . . “Kill that red-skinned thief.” . . . “Jesus Christ, save our souls.” . . . “Look out.” . . . Mostly, she heard profanity.
Her head swung. Indians drove longhorns across the Powder. One of the fishermen dived into the river and stayed down, out of sight. A red ox kicked the freight wagon. A riderless horse, saddled, bolted toward the distant buttes.
“Get down, Cory.” That was Molly, still calling her by her alias. Constance moved her eyes. Molly had found that gun of hers. She raised the barrel, squeezed the trigger, cursed percussion caps.
Through thickening dust, Constance spotted Story, guns in both hands, one pointed at the ground, the other trying to catch up with a warrior who raced a pinto pony across the camp. Seeing something else, she ran.
Praying. Legs, still stiff and sore from riding in a miserable wagon for half of forever, carried her. Smelling gun smoke, dust, horses, oxen, her own stink despite what passed for a bath, clothes and all, in the river earlier this morning. Story’s Navy barked once, twice, then he shoved it into the holster and tossed the weapon in his left hand to his right. It never got there.
Because Constance leaped, turning sideways, letting her body catch the back of Story’s thighs. He cursed as he fell backward, and Constance hit the ground, felt the air rushing from her lungs as sh
e rolled over, glimpsed the warrior on the skewbald, its tail tied up short, saw the spear—lance—whatever the hell Indians called those things—coming right at her, following her as she rolled toward Tsoyio’s fire.
* * *
Story jerked the lance hard, and Constance Beckett gasped and placed her right hand against her side. Blood streamed between her fingers, but Story figured she’d live.
“That was a damned fool thing to do,” he told her.
“Yes.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “It was.”
He nodded at Boone. “Cauterize it. Get her patched up.” Then yelled, “Catlin. Hannah. Tsoyio. Thompson. Overholt. Mount up. You’re riding with me.”
“Overholt isn’t going anywhere,” Connor Lehman said.
Story whirled to the wagon boss. “Dead?”
“No, but he wasn’t as lucky as the girl. Lance got him in the thigh.”
“All right. Collins, you’re with us. Rest of you, get the horses, cattle, and wagons to Fort Reno. Have the sawbones there patch up the girl, Petty, Overholt, anyone else who needs it.”
“Where’s the fort?” Boone asked.
“How the hell would I know? It wasn’t here last time I came through. But from what the boys said at Laramie, it’s just up the river. Not far. Shit. I shouldn’t have stopped till I got there. Get moving. The rest of you. Mount up and come with me.”
“Where are you going?” Constance managed to ask.
“To get my damned cattle back.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
The thieves, José Pablo Tsoyio knew, would be easy to follow. Twenty or thirty longhorns, the many unshod ponies of the Lakotas. One did not have to be Kit Carson to follow such a trail. It was the catching up with the Indians that worried José Pablo Tsoyio, and might explain why he kept reaching into his coat pocket and fingering the crucifix of poor young José Sibrian.
Tracks led northeast, but this country remained brand-new and strange to José Pablo Tsoyio. Texas was vast, Mexico, big. Yet the sky in this Dakota Territory reached from one end of the world to the other, making you feel you rode underneath a bowl. Still, as flat as the land seemed, there was no hiding place for—
The mule’s ears flattened. Which is why José Pablo Tsoyio told Story he would ride a mule, not one of the skittish Texas cow ponies. Mules were tough, dependable, reliable . . . and they could smell an Indian or an Indian pony.
He jerked the reins, heard the shot to his left, and felt the rush of a leaden ball as it passed in front of him.
Raising his revolver, he spotted the warriors rising to his left. How they had remained hidden, keeping their horses lying on their sides and silent . . . well, the Lakotas could teach José Pablo Tsoyio many wonderful tricks, if they did not kill him. He snapped a shot, finding more Indians rising like Lazarus on the other side of the trail.
He kicked the mule’s side, turned the jack, rode hard after dust raised by the horses of Story and his men as they bolted for the rocks. A feather flashed to his left, struck the ground about twenty yards in front of the mule. No, not a feather, but an arrow. Behind him came yips, war songs, crashing hooves. The rocks lay a hundred yards ahead.
It would be wrong, José Pablo Tsoyio told the Blessed Mother, for a man like him, brave José Pablo Tsoyio, who had lived with honor, who had killed no innocent men, especially those who had insulted him or his honor, to die with an arrow, lance, or musket ball in his back. Besides, José Pablo Tsoyio had made a promise to a dying boy, a fine Catholic, a believer, a child. José Pablo Tsoyio hoped the crucifix did not fall out of the pocket of his coat.
The rocks neared. So did the Indians. Then Nelson Story, his patrón, stepped out of the natural redoubt, firing two Navy Colts. Story stepped toward the mule. Smoke and flame belched from the Remington rifles behind them, the charging warriors slackened their pace, and José Pablo Tsoyio rode into the rocks, dismounted, and joined the fight.
* * *
Ellen Story stared at the crowd surrounding an odd wagon, painted yellow, green, and tan, parked in the middle of Wallace Street.
“Twenty drops in one tumbler of water,” the barker called from the wagon’s rear. All Ellen could see was the top of the man’s tall silk hat. “That’s all you need, folks. Give it to your little ones, your loved ones, give it to yourself. Folks, there’s no need to suffer when Coldsmith’s Ready Relief is a cure for every pain. Inflammation of the kidneys, inflammation of the bladder, inflammation of the bowels, congestion of the lungs, sore throat, palpitation of the heart, croup, diphtheria, catarrh, ague . . . Folks, this is better than French brandy or bitters as a stimulant.”
Men and women, young and old, rushed to the wagon with paper money and coins.
“Dear Lord in heaven,” Ellen whispered, “have they all gone mad?”
* * *
“Boss . . .” Tommy Thompson lowered the binoculars and slid slightly down the rock perch that served as a lookout tower. “They’re pulling out. Riding north.”
Story turned to José Pablo Tsoyio.
“Likely one, maybe two, remain behind,” the Mexican said. “To see what we do.”
“And what do we do?” Collins asked.
“Tighten your cinches.” Story moved to where Catlin held the horses. “We ride back to the herd.”
“You’re letting them take your beef?” Hannah said.
“I’m letting them think that,” Story said, nodding at Catlin before taking the reins to his mount. “There’s a coulee a mile south. We’ll hide in there till night, then follow their trail.”
As he worked the cinch, he looked over the saddle at Catlin.
“You know why I made you wrangler?” Story did not wait for an answer. “It’s because you’re the only one big enough to hold all five animals. I know you’re a hell of a shot, but you’re also the only man here I’d trust not to let our horses hightail it out of here.”
* * *
After turning up the lantern, Ellen looked at her sleeping baby while tapping continued on the cabin’s door. Ellen hadn’t been this timid, or scared, since during the rebellion, when Kansans feared any night visitor might be a Missouri bushwhacker. She drew in a breath, let it out, and said, “Yes?”
“Missus Story,” the thick brogue announced. “It is I, Thomas Meagher.”
“Governor.” She opened the door quickly, and the Irishman stepped to the light, hat in his left hand, a leash in his right. Beside him, a dog began yapping.
“Hush,” Meagher told the hound. “You’ll wake Montana.” He dropped to his knee and began scratching the skeletal dog’s ears, leaving Ellen standing there with a lantern at ten in the evening wondering if Meagher might be in his cups.
He lifted his head, smiled, and said, “Missus Story, this poor pooch is an orphan, I am sad to say. Dr. Beckstead asked me to see if you and your baby would like a watchdog.” The dog whined, and Meagher laughed. “Though I dare say he would not be good for that particular assignment.” Again, he looked up, and his eyes saddened. “Mr. O’Ryan died this night. The doctor thought you would be so kind.” He sighed. “I fear, we fear, all other residents would kill this noble hound, thinking it might carry the diphtheria.” He sniffed in the cold. “The good doctor says there is no chance of that. Though how anyone knows . . .”
“He knows,” Ellen said. She made herself say: “I trust Se—Dr. Beckstead.” Glancing again at the dog, she asked, “What’s his name?”
Meagher rose. “No one knows.”
“I’ll let Nelson name him when he returns.” She reached out with her right hand to take the leash.
* * *
No one held the horses this time.
Catlin fired the Enfield, saw the warrior with the buffalo headdress spin around and drop into the dirt. He kicked the sides of the horse, and heard the cannonade of pistol and rifle shots. Another Indian rose from the ground, and Catlin swung the blistering hot rifle barrel like a war ax, feeling the stock crash against the brave’s forehead. The jolt jerked the Enfield fro
m his hand, almost pulled Catlin out of the saddle. He held the reins, heard guttural shouts, drowned out soon by the ringing in his ears.
Sliding out of the saddle, Catlin drew the Remington from his waistband. Dropped to his knees, still gripping the reins no matter how desperate the gelding tried to pull him all the way to Canada.
All around him sparked muzzle flashes in the night. Something moved to his left. He snapped a shot. The earth trembled. He shot at a shadow. Fired again. Now he felt blinded, and all he could smell was brimstone. As though he had stepped into hell. At length, he realized he kept triggering an empty revolver.
Moments later, a stillness replaced the thundering in his ears. His vision returned, but all he saw was a dying campfire.
A face flashed before him, but he couldn’t quite see straight or clear.
“You all right?” At least, Catlin could hear. “Damn fine job, Catlin.”
As quick as it had appeared, Story’s face was gone.
Catlin blinked, turned, saw the figure moving into the Indian camp, and Catlin did what those years in the infantry had trained him to do. He followed his commander.
* * *
As Tommy Thompson stoked the fire, Jameson Hannah reloaded his revolver, pulled the hammer to full cock, and aimed at the wounded warrior’s head.
“Leave him be,” Story said.
Hannah looked up, but did not move the barrel. “He’s a damned cattle thief and Indian to boot.”
“And when Four Elks and the others come back, they’ll have to tend to him and the one whose face Catlin smashed,” Story said.
“They won’t come back,” Hannah said. “They’ve disgraced themselves by leaving their wounded and dead behind.”
“They’ll come back,” Tsoyio said.
Hannah whirled. “What does a Mexican cook know about a Sioux brave?”
A Thousand Texas Longhorns Page 36
