Black Hills (9781101559116)

by Thompson, Rod

  “My pa loved one woman in his whole life, and I guess it’s going to be the same with me.”

  Cormac took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “Unfortunately for me, my ‘one woman’ can’t stand the sight of me. I like you a lot, but I’m not in love with you in the way you want me to be, and it wouldn’t be fair to you to let you go on thinking I am. There’s a woman back in the Dakota Territory that I just can’t seem get out of my mind. I’m sorry.”

  First she stared at him in disbelief, and then she sat staring into the river with tears flowing freely down her cheeks as her body shook with silent sobbing. Presently, she numbly stumbled her way to Dandy, and they rode back to the ranch in dismal silence.

  Feeling nearly as miserable as she, Cormac could think of nothing to say that she would want to hear, and accordingly, said nothing. When they got to the ranch, still without speaking, she slapped his hands away as he tried to unsaddle Dandy for her. He remembered Lainey kicking his hands away from tucking in her blanket. He seemed to have that effect on women.

  Going to the bunkhouse, Cormac rolled up his belongings and left.

  “Tell your family good-bye for me, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her,” he told a surprised Josh on the way out the door to where Horse and Lop Ear were waiting.

  Josh bristled, “Did you touch her? She doesn’t do much around here but flirt with the hands, but she doesn’t need you taking advantage of her. If you laid a hand on her, I’ll . . .”

  “No,” Cormac cut in, “I did not take advantage of her.”

  He strapped the pack on Horse, and with his bedroll behind the saddle and a quick look at the house, rode out of the ranch yard. Laurie was simply standing forlornly on the porch between her parents with her arms hanging by her sides, as he rode away. Any money he had coming, Mr. Haplander would deposit into the bank—or he wouldn’t.

  If what he had done, or not done, in not taking advantage of her vulnerability was the right thing, why did he feel so terrible? Life was complicated and not for the weak.

  With no destination in mind, he turned east. He had been hearing more talk of gold in the Black Hills. Maybe he could dodge the Indians and go hit a strike of some kind and get rich. Mid-day, he made a dinner camp with a small smokeless fire hidden from unwanted guests a short distance from a stream. There wasn’t much in his pack; he should have gone into Virginia City for supplies, although there was still a mite of coffee, sugar, salt, and some flapjack makin’s, and he knew how to hunt. He would have to make do. He did not want to explain why he was leaving.

  With Horse and Lop Ear leisurely grazing their way to the stream, Cormac came out of his thinking-about-Laurie induced trance when the coffee boiled over and sizzled on the fire. As he reached across the fire to retrieve the pot, a voice came from behind him.

  “You hold right still now, so I don’t miss. I’m going to be the man who killed Mack Lynch, the Dakota gunfighter.”

  Cormac faked a quick right step, spun left, drew, and fired three times in quick succession. With no time to aim, he had to fire on the spin as soon as the gunman came into view. Not being able to depend on just one shot, he spread three and hoped for the best. Two of his shots hit their mark. It was the kid that had watched him shoot Ghago and his men in Virginia City.

  Cormac walked to where the body lay. A kid, most likely with a father and mother waiting at home for him. A mother who had held him and loved him and had dreams for him. And now she would cry for him. Cormac sat down on a nearby log and stared at the dead boy. He was responsible for that. Cormac Lynch. Cormac Lynch had killed a teenage boy. He dug out his makin’s and rolled a smoke.

  When suppertime came, Cormac was still sitting on the log. His eyes burned and his throat was raw from too many cigarettes and his lungs hurt. How could this have happened? A young man had died at his hand because some worthless people had ridden out of the hills and taken Cormac’s life from him, and his father’s life, and his mother’s life, and his sister Rebecca’s life, and the children she might have had.

  No more plans did they get to make. No children did Becky get to have or teach how to tie their shoes, or kiss their owies, or make breakfast for and celebrate birthdays with. No times did she get to lay in her husband’s arms in bed late at night and look out the window at the stars. And his parents did not get to hold Becky’s children, and kiss them goodnight and see them excited when their grandparents came to visit. Death was very final. And now Cormac Lynch had taken another life. Maybe Lainey’s attitude was right after all. Maybe she was right to not want him around.

  The kid must have somehow learned where he worked and waited for him to leave the Flying H. So now Cormac Lynch was a gunfighter, not a reputation he wanted. He could change his name, he reckoned, but it would just happen again under the new name, making a name change again necessary. Times were changing with most of the country relying on judges, juries, and executioners, but frequently on the frontier, the gun was still the final word.

  Cormac briefly considered changing his name but decided against it. He was and would always be, the son of John and Amanda Lynch, brother to Rebecca Lynch, and that’s just the way it was going to be. Mr. Cormac Lorton Lynch and the rest of the world were just going to damn well have to deal with it. This kind of thing was apparently going to be a condition of life, and he would just have to deal with that, too; he would have to be ready.

  “Well you might, boy,” his pa would have said. “Well you might.”

  When his tobacco was gone, Cormac tied the kid across his horse and took him to the sheriff in Virginia City. The kid’s one shot had burned Cormac’s right forearm wrist to elbow, proving that it had been self-defense. Cormac got a bath and a room at the Virginia City hotel. That night he dreamed of lying next to Lainey on the grass beside a creek and woke up wishing he had dreamed just a few minutes longer. It had been looking like it was going to have a completely different ending. The next day he bought plenty of supplies and headed south; he had to go someplace and east was Black Hills chock-full of Indians, west was a whole range of mountains, and north was Canada. That only left south.

  And so began the training of a gunfighter. From then on, he would practice every day but Sunday. Practicing on Sunday to kill somebody just seemed wrong. That very day Cormac began the one-hour daily practice routine, drawing from every conceivable position with one or both guns, right- or left-handed. He drew while standing, sitting, lying down, riding on a horse, drawing while rolling and shooting, or diving left or right into a mid-air, roll-over-to-face-backward position.

  After that day, without fail, he worked on one-handed draws from either side, the cross draw, drawing a gun from his belt, drawing a right-hand gun with his left hand, and his left hand gun with his right hand. He practiced the border shift, the road agents spin, and any other way he could think of, and he practiced daily. If he was going to stay alive, he would have to be prepared for anything.

  Traveling all day was just that: traveling. His mind was dwelling unhappily on events of the last few days. That night he slept restlessly and woke up to the sound of a gun battle in the distant east.

  He sighed. “I guess we better go see what’s goin’ on, guys. Better put on your runnin’ legs today, we may need ’em.” Hurriedly, Cormac packed, checked the loads in his guns, filled all the cylinders, and strapped on the Colt. The scattergun was tied on the pack in its normal quick-release fashion, and GERT was comfortably under his right leg. He held the duo to a comfortable gallop a little below full out. He didn’t want them worn out in case he found more than he was bargaining for.

  The reports were from several different calibers in spasmodic bursts. A sudden burst of multiple gun voices sounding like single-shot rifles, judging by the rapidity of the shots, would be joined by what sounded like two repeating rifles. Many Indians had gotten their hands on repeating rifles, but not all. The battle sounded like two persons with Winchesters, or maybe Henrys, which had been Winchesters before t
here were Winchesters, holed up and fighting off a war party of Indians with single-shot rifles.

  Unhappily, it was just that. Cormac was correct.

  With his long-glass, he could see into a shallow valley from behind a group of hilltop boulders. Two buckskin-clad white men were pinned down in a boulder group encircled by a red-skinned welcoming party. Outnumbered in an indefensible position, it was only a matter of time. Out in the open, the boulders had been easily surrounded. The attackers could draw the fire from one direction and attack from another. Cormac could make out four Indian bodies and one Indian pony carcass sprawled motionless on the ground. The trapped men were not going down easily, but they would eventually go down. Unless they got some help.

  “Hang on, boys. Here comes the cavalry.” Dropping back, Cormac made his way around the hill to a stand of Ponderosas on a slight rise and unlimbered GERT. After laying out a few cartridges for rapid access and removing the thongs holding his six-guns in their holsters, he rested the rifle on a branch for support, quickly realizing there was another with a better height. Unnoticed by him, on the first resting site was a puddle of freshly dripped sap from a higher branch making GERT’s front stock a sticky mess. Nuts!

  While the two were busy holding the attackers at bay, three sneakers on the side were inching unnoticed toward them flat on their stomachs. From his viewpoint, Cormac could see the buckskin-clad men were being manipulated. Indians on the south side would suddenly fake an attack to draw their fire, dropping at the first shots to avoid any more losses, but while the white men were shooting, the Indians crawling up on the north side would advance a few feet, and then the attack would reverse. Each attack put them six or eight feet closer and kept attention away from the sneak attack coming up from the side.

  Cormac set GERT’s adjustable sights to compensate for the approximately two hundred-yard distance, lined them up on the lead sneaker, inhaled, exhaled slowly, and held the exhale while gently squeezing the trigger until GERT bellowed. The forward Indian’s body jerked noticeably followed a half instant later by the accompanying report. Cormac quickly pulled back the bolt to eject the spent cartridge, reloaded, and caught another ex-sneaker running away.

  Two shots were enough to give away Cormac’s location, and the mounted Indians sped toward him. He missed a running target with another shot from GERT, quickly bringing both pistols into the fray for a couple of shots each before doing a fast reload and firing of GERT and the scattergun that was followed by more pistols shots. The range was too great for pistols, but Cormac was hoping to give the appearance of more than one defender.

  The Smith & Wesson was a good little gun, but it had a long ways to go to compare with the Colt for range and accuracy. The Colt picked another of the charging Indians off his horse, and that was enough for them. The front-most Indian yelled something in his own tongue and pointed at Horse and Lop Ear standing a ways off from Cormac, and the Indians headed for parts unknown. Cormac picked off one more with a long shot from GERT as they went over the next hill, foolishly riding straight away from him. They should have known better.

  By the time Cormac had reloaded his guns, the buckskin-clad men were riding up the hill to thank him. With one tall and broad, at least two or three inches taller than Cormac, and the other tall and haggard in appearance, they were a sight.

  Looking around quizzically, the skinny one spoke.

  “Man. Wit all tha firpower and all, I thot the Cavry was here or sumthin. Whatcha got up heres anyways?”

  “A couple pistols, a rifle, and a shotgun. I was hopin’ they would think there were several men here. I guess it worked. Where you boys headed?”

  “The Rockies. We been trappin’ the Black Hills, but all the fuss bout gold’s got the Injuns all het up. We’ve had a couple close calls lately from sum of the young bucks and reckened it might be a good idee to have a look at the Rockies.” He looked at the pack riding on Lop Ear.

  “Any chance you got sum coffee in thet ther pac? We relized them thar ainjuns was comin’ and had to leave our outfit behind and hightail it outta camp yestday morn’. Didn’t mattr ta Abe any, but me, I had a knife I set store by in thet pak. We just ben stayin’ a half jump heda them eva since. Some coffee wuld go down rite good.”

  “Sure. If one of you will go check on your friends to see if they’re stayin’ gone like good fellows, I’ll fix us some breakfast. I had to skip out on mine when I heard your commotion.”

  “Wal, we sure thank y’all for com’n. They kinda had us ovr a barel.” Tall and broad turned to tall and skinny. “You wanna chek out their direction and I’ll go hav a luk at our bak tral and mak sur we got no cumpny com’n up from behind.”

  Knowing his own appetite and guessing at theirs, Cormac had a couple plates filled to overflowing with thick bacon and flapjacks along with a can of molasses warming by the fire in jig time. The horseshoe coffee was hot and strong.

  “I only got one cup. You’ll have to fight over it between ya.”

  “Nah, we drunk outta tha saim cup bunchs a times,” answered the broad one. “Sum tims it cain’t be he’pd.” The three of them fell to it. This was eating time; talking time would come later.

  “So tell me about the Black Hills,” Cormac said after the food was gone and the coffee cup was full again. Cormac was using his metal plate from which to drink coffee. It worked, but cooled the coffee too fast.

  “Well, sir. First let me thank you for the grub. My back bone was getting sore from rubbing on my belt buckle.” Then he laughed at the look on Cormac’s face. “I’m from Ohio. Cuz there is from the Ozark’s Mountain country, that’s why we speak differently. He’s my cousin, I just call him Cuz, cause it’s easier than saying Bartholomew all the time and shorter than cousin. He doesn’t like being called Bart. My name is Abe Langston. Abe, for Abraham, after Abraham Lincoln. My pop was a friend of his when they were kids. What’s your handle?”

  Cormac told him, and they shook hands all around.

  “I speak more better, y’see, cause I had the chance to go to school and get some eddication? He didn’t. He’s just dumb.” He exaggerated the improper accent and the word dumb, and ducked the empty tin cup thrown at his head.

  “You asked about the Black Hills; they’re magnificent. That’s them yonder stickin’ up in the distance. See how dark they look?” Cormac nodded, they were truly magnificent. Abraham went on. “That’s the Ponderosa Pines makin’ ’em look black. It’s where God lives, a mountain man’s heaven. The first time we went in, we were speechless. There was an over-abundance of goats, deer, elk, bear, buffalo, beaver, a couple jillion birds, and streams full of the largest trout you ever saw. I tell you, it’s a woodsman’s paradise. We thought we’d found the Garden of Eden. It’s a heaven right here on this earth, and the Indians want to keep it that way. They don’t over-hunt an area. If white men get in, they’ll ruin it.”

  He hesitated and then nodded at the yellow Bull Durham tag hanging out of Cormac’s pocket. “Y’all saved our lives and fed us, so I hate to ask for more, but you reckon we can have some of that? It’s been a long time since I had a smoke of real tobacco instead of dried leaves and it’s looking almighty good—if you can spare some.”

  Cormac threw him the bag. “Keep it. How about you, Cuz? You want one? I got plenty.” With no hesitation, Cuz nodded eagerly, and Cormac got two more bags out of his pack and tossed one to each of them, taking back his own half-empty bag. “It’s worth it to hear what you’re telling me. I was born and raised not far from the Black Hills and have heard stories about them all my life, but never from anyone who had actually been there. Go on, please.”

  “The Indians call them Paha Sapa, which is Sioux for the Black Hills. Newspapers have called them mysterious and unexplored. They claim no white man had ever entered them and that there have been no maps of the area until an army general, I think his name is Custer, went in there last year, but mountain men have been through there for years. Jedediah Smith took fifteen trappers there a long time back
, and Cuz and I have been there nigh on to five years, and we’ve met a few others going and coming. Some weren’t too smart and lost their hair for it.

  “The Indians knew we were there but left us alone as long as we didn’t flaunt it in their faces because we provided a lot of food for them the first year. It was a hard winter, and they were struggling to survive, only having mostly bows and arrows and the snow being so deep they couldn’t get around. With our rifles, we dropped several deer and elk and one bear close to their villages in places where they could easily get to them and left them to be found. They didn’t spoil because of the cold.

  “The Indians been there forever. It’s the religious center of their world. First one tribe takes over until they get pushed out by another. The Arikara were run out by the Arapaho who got pushed out by Cheyenne, who got pushed out by the Kiowa, who was then run out by the Lakota Sioux. The Sioux came to the Black Hills to purify themselves, they say, and to seek visions. I think the Lakota Sioux are pretty much firmly entrenched there now. They’ve proven to be one of the strongest and most moral tribes, although some of them do believe in polygamy. One wife takes one side of the teepee, leaving the other side for the newcomer, and they share the wifely duties and chores.

  “Their Wichasa Wakan, that’s their word for medicine man, or holy man, believe their medicine is stronger in the Black Hills, and they have healed people that had been given up for dead. In fact, some rumors claim that some dead have even been brought back to life.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I don’t know what to believe. They say Crazy Horse is a mystic who spent three days on Bear Butte in the Black Hills searching for a vision. They say in his vision, he saw himself leading his warriors to great victories while riding out in front of them with many bullets flying around him, but none of them actually hitting him. Since then he has led every attack from out in front, and to this day has never been hit.” He paused to build another smoke to replace the one he had let burn out. “And now we have the Helawees,” he added.