“Know what Crow used to say about livin’ by you guns? Said it made him a kind of alchemist. Said he was the first man in history to turn lead into gold. Yeah. Meanest son of a bitch ever. Crow.”
No other name. just Crow. Dressed in black from head to toe. The meanest man in the bullet-scarred annals of the West. Nobody ever turned their back on him. A cold voice in the shadows, a vengeful angel of death …
Time was when Crow was visiting Fort Garrett. Took a dislike to a young cavalryman named Jonas … and nearly broke every bone in his body … But while they were making up their minds what to do with Crow, a boy disappeared from the Fort, name of Cyrus Quaid … a sadistic sixteen year-old, hated by the Apaches. So they sent Crow out to find him …
CONTENTS
Dedication
Memoirs Of The Washita
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Copyright
About the Author
Books in the Series
About Piccadilly Publishing
This is for Ron Taylor as a small way of thanking him for all the time and energy he’s given to the boys of Royden Rangers, and to Val for her help in producing yet another literary masterpiece.
“The decision to engage the enemy was taken after the fullest possible consideration of all available information. Logistical eventualities were of paramount importance; the topography, supplies, armaments, lines of communication, climate, morale and the possibility of reinforcements all needed to be weighed and evaluated. Only then, after the most careful discussion and planning, did we take the hazardous decision to fight.”
From “Memoirs Of The Washita” by
Brevet Major-General George Kemp, Published
by Temple Press, Parkfield, Illinois, 1884.
“It is a good day to die.”
Attributed, inter alia, to the Comanche war chief, Many Lances, circa 1884.
Chapter One
“It’s a good day to die.”
The old-timer’s mouth curled up with wry laughter as he declaimed the sentiment. Striking himself on the chest in a mock-heroic gesture. Leaning back in the rocking chair and grinning at the Easterner with the sly amusement of someone with secret knowledge.
“Yeah. Old Crow used to laugh at the way white folks said that. Like it meant the Indians were always expectin’ to get beat.”
The tall figure of the publisher uncoiled himself from the scuffed steps of the porch and stood up, stretching like a great cat. Gazing out over the pale yellow grass, dotted with the droppings of the landlady’s dog.
The sun was moving on in its leisurely way across the Kansas sky, warming Abilene with the late summer heat.
“That weren’t what it meant.”
The old man looked up and saw the raised eyebrow of the visitor. Cackling again with laughter.
“You sure don’t say a lot, Mister, and that’s the truth. Known you for two, three years now, and I hardly ever hear you speak more’n a sentence.”
Far away to the north a flimsy biplane was hovering around the edges of a bank of thin cloud, its humming drone barely audible.
“Could’ve used one of them against the Indians. Fly over the top of them. Only way you can beat ’em. No, that sayin’ … All it meant was that Indians was damned casual about dyin’. If they had to die then that was it. One day was much like another for that. And when they felt a special feelin’, then that might be the day.”
The publisher nodded. Wondering how long it would take to steer the oldster round to the subject he wanted to hear about.
About the man called Crow.
No first or second name.
Just Crow.
“White folks never understood that. Made a whole parcel of difference in some fights. Indians keepin’ on battlin’ when all sense said they should have quit long before.”
The Easterner turned round and leaned against the upright pillar of the porch. Looking at the other man, seeing how well he’d recovered from the fight a few months back that had come close to blinding him. Over the years he’d developed an affection far above and beyond the use that the old-timer had been. Two or three times each year he’d traveled across the country from New York to Abilene, each time bringing a few extra dollars to supplement the retainer that they paid the ex-gunfighter.
The last of the breed.
That was what he called himself. Specially late on in the evenings, while they sat together and drank Jack Daniels in the small, bare, neat room.
“Never face the sun. Always stand with your back to it. Load your own bullets. File the trigger yourself. Never get a damned smith to do it. Swing sideways as you drop for the draw.”
Demonstrating the movement. Right hand trembling over the butt of an imaginary pistol. Fingers working as if he was playing a banjo. Left shoulder dipped. Eyes straight and still. Somehow the years fell away and the publisher could see back, well into the nineties, through into the eighties. Back to the seventies. That had been the time that the gunfighter had known Crow.
The Easterner wondered how frightening the legendary shootist must have been. He felt as though he knew him well from the long talks with the old-timer in Kansas.
He’d learned first of the feud that had led to Crow being kicked out of the Cavalry. A story that had finished with Crow as the sole white witness to the ending of Autie Custer —Old Yellow-Hair—up on the Little Big Horn, in ‘seventy-six.”
“I’d be partial to a walk down the block, and maybe a drink with you, Sir,” said the old man.
The publisher nodded his agreement, seeing a shadow of movement behind the front door. Barely visible through the central panel of stained glass. A whaling ship with bright scarlet sails. A blue sea and whales as green as spring grass. From inside the hall the picture was fresher and stronger, ‘specially with the evening sun glittering through it.
The figure would be the cantankerous and hypocritical landlady. A pinch-faced woman who was only nice to the old gunfighter because she knew the money order came through regularly from New York, first day of every month. That bought her acceptance, but only that.
They began to walk slowly along the street. Since the fight the old man had become slower, stiffer in his movements. The younger man thought again about the time he’d been shown how a real shootist ought to stand, and that carried his mind again to Crow, ticking off in his mind what the man must have looked like.
Six feet and two inches in height. Broad in the shoulder, but narrow in the waist and at the hip. ‘Lean’ was the word that most often seemed to fit. He wore his hair long, spilling across his neck and shoulders. Black as a raven’s wing at midnight. He always wore black, did Crow. The only touch of color in his appearance the splash of yellow at the neck where he still sported the golden Cavalry bandana.
His weapons were unusual.
Most of the shootists and bounty hunters around the West and South-West in the second half of the nineteenth century habitually carried at least one handgun. Later it commonly became the Colt 45. The Peacemaker. Before that it was often a Colt cap-and-ball pistol, like the Navy or Army models.
Crow used a scattergun.
Not just any old Meteor shotgun.
This was a double-barreled ten-gauge Purdey, made in London in 1868, signed and dated. A most beautiful gun with a hand-engraved walnut stock. But Crow didn’t use it for bringing down game on the wing. He c
arried his Purdey in a special deep holster on his right hip and for ease of drawing he’d committed the ultimate sacrilege with such a weapon. He’d taken a hacksaw and sliced off most of the barrels, leaving just four inches.
At anything over twenty paces or so you might as well spit at your target. Anything much inside that range and you can come mighty close to blowing a hole clean through a well-built man.
Crow also wore a handgun. An ordinary Peacemaker in the back of his belt, beneath the black, cutaway coat.
On the left hip he wore a knife. But not just any butcher’s blade. This was the brass-hilted 1860 Cavalry saber, still sporting the golden tassels on the hilt. Before riding away from the Army forever Crow had asked the farrier at Fort Buford to hone the blade down to a neat thirty inches and put a needle point to it.
That description was about all the publisher really knew about the man called Crow.
There was his voice.
A soft, gentle voice that women loved. Crow hardly ever needed to raise it, but when he was angry it could flay you as easy as a muleskinner’s blacksnake whip.
He carried a rifle on his saddle. Winchester. And he was a better than average shot with the pistol and the long gun. The Purdey didn’t need a lot of skill to wipe men away. He was a lethal fighter with the knife. Expert tracker. The rumors that he’d spent a lot of time with the Indians were so persistent that they tended to be very believable.
Crow was good. Very good indeed.
But he didn’t suffer fools gladly.
Facts were that he didn’t suffer them at all.
“Good evening, ladies,” said the old man, breaking into the Easterner’s train of thought. Tearing him back from the eighteen-seventies right up to date in Abilene, Kansas. The biplane had disappeared from sight and he could hear the rattling of a street-car somewhere on one of the parallel streets.
Two young girls both bobbed curtsies to the old-timer and he tipped his hat to them. They couldn’t have been older than fifteen, giggling together in their straw hats with yellow ribbons.
“Pretty little … Hell, it sure sets the juices racin’ again, seein’…” The sentence faded away into silence as the old man’s mind became cluttered.
But he stopped and turned to watch the girls, shaking his head. “Pert little asses, ain’t they? Look at ’em jiggerin’ along there. Wicked girls nowadays. Did I tell you of Crow’s run-in with them sisters?”
The publisher nodded. So far he’d been able to bring out seven of the stories of Crow. Tales of wagon train massacres, Zulu princelings. Kidnappings and lost mines. Blind religious maniacs. Men. Women. Children.
“Guess I ought to tell you somethin’ new, less you stop comin’ to see me.”
The old man’s eyes were rheumy with age and watered in strong light. The publisher smiled at him, reaching out a steadying hand as they crossed over one of the intersections. A car rattled by, horn honking.
“Dangblasted gas buggies! Comin’ by like a heap of old iron, frightenin’ animals and terrifyin’ decent women.” He dropped his voice as a couple of flashily-dressed, over painted whores swayed past them. “Not that all the women round here are decent.” Another pause. “Thank the Lord.”
The publisher wondered how he could steer the old gunfighter’s mind back to Crow.
He commented on what a pleasant evening it was, with only wisps of high cloud to mar the perfection of the blue.
“Sure. A good day, like I said. Hot and dry this summer. Ain’t no damned change in Kansas rain, Mister. Only falls out on the plain.”
They turned into a tatty-looking bar, where the old man was greeted by a load of other elderly working men, mostly dressed in faded blue overalls. Some of them were playing dominoes, pushing themselves away from the rickety tables with their beer-guts.
The aged gunfighter had told the publisher of the cafe.
“Called the Green Frog, Mister. Me and some other men. Sit around like a load of desperadoes waiting for a train. Sing a few songs now and then. Sink some beers.”
He’d talked about the men. Wildcatters and well-diggers. Wagon drivers and railway riders. The way he told it they surely sounded like some of the heroes of the country and the Easterner felt a feeling of slight disappointment, at having been somehow cheated, seeing them sitting there like any other group of old men.
They sat together at a side table, the old-timer draining his foaming glass as though it was something that he’d been waiting for all day. Inside it was dark and cool, the air smoky and stale. In the corner of the room there was a battered gramophone with a scratched record playing quietly on it.
“That’s better, Mister. Much obliged. The rest of them?” Dropping his voice. “Keep your money. They’d get the idea I was settin’ up as someone special. Wouldn’t take well to that. I’ll have another, though, and thank you kindly for it.”
The publisher was beginning to feel a little concerned. Already he’d been in Abilene for several hours and still not the least sign of a new story about the man called Crow.
The door swung open and a half-caste boy came in with a parcel, putting it silently on the counter of the bar, standing for a moment scanning the room. Sensing the hostility and spitting on the floor to show his defiance. Walking out, deliberately banging the door shut behind him.
The old-timer laughed. “Spunky little bastard, ain’t he? Sets me in mind of Mickey Free. Breed started all the trouble with the high and damned mighty Lieutenant George W. Bascom. Back in the early part of ‘sixty-one. Up near Apache Pass. Cochise country.”
A second glass of beer arrived at the Easterner’s signal and the old man picked it up, locking his arthritic fingers around the handle.
“Yeah. Al Sieber was chief of scouts then. Said that Mickey lost an eye when a deer gouged him in a hunt – said Mickey was half-Irish, half-Mexican and whole son of a bitch. Caused some killin’ did that.”
There was the prickle of excitement at the back of the publisher’s neck. The old man had that look in his eye. Introspective, starting back into time. As though his mind was tearing years off some kind of mental calendar, moving away from the present, towards some distant past.
Maybe towards the man known only as Crow.
“Puts me in mind of old Crow that story does, Mister. Know what I mean? Guess you wouldn’t. Did I tell you ‘bout Crow and the stolen boy?”
He saw the negative shake of the head. “Figured I didn’t. Don’t recall so much. Ain’t as young as … Hell, that was a damned bloody business.”
This could be it.
Over the years there’d been several false alarms. Tales that had begun, then the thread had been cut and the words had rolled away down the gutter of the old man’s mind. A couple of times he’d started to tell the Easterner stories about Crow then realized that they’d happened to someone else. To Herne the Hunter or to Josiah Hedges.
But this was for real. The publisher could feel the adrenalin coursing through him and he waved a hand towards the bar to order another round of drinks
“Yeah. A kid that was took by some Indians. That was the beginning of it. This time of year. Late summer. Must have been in the year of ‘seventy-eight. The fall of ‘seventy-eight.”
Chapter Two
“It’s a good day to die.”
Fort Garrett was readying itself for the coming winter. Already the evenings brought a bitter chill and the morning patrols rode out over trails frosted with pale ice. The sun at the middle of the day lacked the warmth of the earlier summer. The animal scavengers were coming closer to hunt for scraps from the kitchens of the fort and there had been increasing signs of the local Indians becoming restive.
Their traditional hunting-grounds had been raided by buffalo hunters intent on supplying the railway workers and their most sacred places had been invaded by white miners hungry for gold and silver.
It was a bad time for the Indians.
“I said that it’s a good day to die,” repeated the soldier.
Th
e man he’d been speaking to paid him no attention, standing near the heavy double gates of the fort, staring out beyond the sentries to the limitless deserts.
“You sufferin’ from hardness of hearin’, Mister?” asked the trooper.
“No.”
“Then how come you don’t answer me?”
“You got a big mouth and a small mind, soldier. I don’t see why I should waste my breath with you.”
The voice was soft. More like a preacher than a man you’d see on the frontier. Even as late as eighteen seventy-eight it was still a wild and desperate region around Fort Garrett.
The trooper turned to look more carefully at the stranger. Measuring him with his eyes. Seeing that he was taller than his first impression had made him think. Something over six feet. But mighty skinny. Dressed totally in black, barring an old Cavalry kerchief, shining yellow at his throat. The face was in shadow.
“Mister …” began the private, “I’m minded to bust your arms to show you some respect and manners.”
His tone was thick with anger. He’d met drunks and drifters and he and his friends knew how to deal with riff-raff like that. A swift kicking behind the fort’s stables generally taught them a lesson in how to show some politeness towards the United States Cavalry.
“I’m frightened, soldier,” replied the tall man. But his voice hadn’t altered and he still hadn’t bothered to even look at the trooper.
“1 was just makin’ conversation,” said the man. With eleven years already behind him he figured there wasn’t much in that part of the country that he didn’t know about. The Arizona Territory didn’t hold any further surprises.
He’d seen them all. Fought them all.
Killed them all.
Cheyenne and Arapaho from the north and east. Comanche and Kiowa raiding in from Texas. Shoshoni from further north and west.
One stranger in black didn’t impress him very much.
“You were mockin’ that dyin’ old man yonder,” said the stranger.
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