This is it, Dooley told himself, and not just because of what he remembered from the map he had glimpsed.
Dooley did not know how much of the entire map he had seen. Had this been the last piece to the puzzle, or was there more, left bloody and unreadable by a Cheyenne arrow? Yet Dooley knew something else. He had been to many mining camps in the mountains, seen many a town. And he might not have the memory of a grafter in one of those carnivals, but he knew that most of those mining towns had been in country that looked a hell of a lot like this.
“What is it?” Mr. Abercrombie said.
“This is it,” Dooley told him.
The Ohioan blinked. “How the hell can you be sure?”
Dooley nodded toward the cliff. “Because there’s a white man over yonder with a big-bore rifle aimed right at us.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Later, when they were alone at Slim Pickings, Miss Sabrina whispered into Dooley’s ear, “How in tarnation did you know he was a white man?”
Dooley could only shrug.
“Keep your hands away from ’em guns of yourn!” the man on the ridge called out in a booming voice. “First one of ya to moves, I blows to hell.” The man moved down the cliff, reminding Dooley of a mountain lion, graceful for such a gangly fellow—and that cliff looked pretty steep. As he walked across the flats toward Dooley and the others, Mr. McCreery said in a quiet voice:
“That’s an Enfield rifle. He’s only got one shot. Means he can only get one of us before we kill him.”
“You want to be the one he shoots,” Mr. Abercrombie said, “go right ahead.”
Mr. McCreery never raised the rifle in his hands, which Dooley decided was a wise play, for Dooley wasn’t as blind as McCreery. Sure, the tall man held a single-shot Enfield rifled musket, but a six-shooter was stuck in his waistband, and Dooley saw another holster under his left shoulder.
“My goodness,” the Widow Kingsbury said as the man came closer. “Is he . . . even . . . human?”
That, Dooley thought, is even money.
If he stood shorter than six-foot-four, Dooley would have been surprised. Lean to the point that he practically resembled a skeleton, he took giant steps over the sage and grass, keeping that Enfield trained on Dooley and the others. When he stopped at last, he brought the rifle to his shoulder and studied the survivors of the Cheyenne attack. He wore no hat, and Dooley did not think he had ever seen a hat in any store—even that big one over in Kansas City—that could have covered his head. Not that this gent’s head was huge, but his hair looked like an osprey might mistake it for her nest—if any of those big birds got down this way. It was dark, filthy, thick, and blown so much by the wind, it went every which way but loose. Varmints could be living somewhere in that mane that would break a currycomb. For all Dooley knew, some rats or mice had made nests inside it.
The face had been burned by the sun and wind, and plastered with so much dirt that the only white—not actually white, but more of a gray, and a dark gray at that—Dooley could see came from whenever he knotted his brow and cracked some of that paste on his forehead. Indeed, the only face that Dooley could see were the stranger’s sunburned and pine-sap-and-dirt-covered nose, the dirty forehead that wasn’t obscured by the hair on his head, and those eyes. The eyes were dark, wild, insane perhaps but more than likely calculating. His eyebrows were thick, but not as thick as his hair, or his mustache and beard. That facial hair had also avoided water, as well as soap and razor, for months. The beard went down to the center of his chest, bristling like cactus spines, so thick and filthy that even the Wyoming wind could scarcely make it move.
Then, of course, there were the man’s clothes. Buckskin, maybe, but that was hard to tell as dirty as those duds were, too. Handmade, naturally, but Dooley could not recall anything ever made so poorly. The pants were a patchwork of hides, stitched together with sinew, different shades of brain-tanned hides and even fur pelts from rabbits. The shirt was of an even worse construction, the left sleeve of rabbit fur coming down to maybe his elbow, and the right sleeve of elk skin tied at the middle of his forearm with fringe, the only fringe Dooley saw on the man’s outfit. The rest of his arm, not to mention his hands and fingers, was browned from the sun, the dirt, and the grime. And his boots weren’t boots at all, nor moccasins, nor brogans or gaiters. No, this man merely wrapped hides over his feet, securing them on his calves with rope.
Dooley had been right, though. A belt—the one bit of his outfit that appeared store-bought or ordered from a mail-order catalog, though purchased many years ago—wrapped around his waist, and a Remington .44 had been stuck around his navel. Dooley had been mistaken about the shoulder holster, however. It wasn’t exactly a holster at all, but a makeshift sheath, with the bone handle of a knife sticking out of it, and it was tied across his chest and back with another bit of rope.
The tall man’s rifle swung toward Mr. Abercrombie.
“Who are you?” he asked in a voice that told Dooley that this man had not spoken to anyone, other than himself, in a long, long time. Apparently, the stranger with the strange outfit and all-too-familiar rifled musket had pegged Abercrombie for the leader.
“Alvin Sebastian Abercrombie.”
“What are you doin’ here?”
“We were attacked by Cheyenne Indians some days back.” He gestured with a wave of his arm. “South of here.”
The Enfield moved to Mr. Hentig.
“Josiah Hentig,” Mr. Hentig said without being asked.
“Bound for Deadwood?” the stranger asked.
“Well . . .” Mr. Hentig wet his lips. “For . . . er . . . gold . . . yes?”
“This ain’t no trail to Deadwood, fella.” The finger tightened on the trigger, and before Mr. Hentig could wet his britches, Mr. McCreery spoke.
“We were not bound for Deadwood, sir, and we don’t even know what trail we are on, sir.”
His words faded as the rifle swung from Mr. Hentig to his own chest, and he wet his trembling lips with a parched tongue.
“And you be?” the man with the Enfield asked.
“Homer McCreery.”
The eyes darted from the three men, passed over the Widow Kingsbury, considered Blue for a second, stayed on General Grant a good while, and landed a fairly long time on Miss Sabrina Granby, before at last stopping at Dooley.
“And you?”
“Dooley Monahan.”
Those dark eyes turned darker, and smaller, and the Enfield pulled tighter against the man’s shoulder.
“The famous bounty hunter?”
“I’m no bounty hunter,” Dooley said calmly, “and I’m far from famous.”
“Figgered you was dead.”
“Not dead,” Dooley said. “Just in Iowa.”
“Practic’ly the same. You ain’t kilt nobody lately.”
You have been away from newspapers, Dooley thought, but made no verbal reply.
He looked at Dooley’s hips, then at his shoulder, and Dooley knew that the stranger was wondering why a bounty hunter of Dooley Monahan’s renown wore no revolver and carried no long gun or shotgun. Yet next, he swung the rifle back at Abercrombie, and McCreery, and briefly Hentig, then stayed on Abercrombie while his eyes locked on Miss Sabrina.
“You be?”
“Sabrina Granby,” she answered. “My uncle was a minister in Cincinnati and now walks the Streets of Gold after an Indian massacre.”
“Cin-see-natti?”
Those crazy eyes made Miss Sabrina swallow and her face turn ashen. She could not answer, but did not have to, because the man now swung his single-shot weapon to the Widow Kingsbury.
“And you?” he practically screamed. “What’s yer name?”
When she told him, the rifle lowered, and butted against the sod, and he said, no longer screaming, no longer growling like some wild animal, and those once-insane eyes showed relief. Not that he looked like a human being, but he did start acting like one.
“Aunt . . .” His throat rasped. “A
unt . . . H-H-Hhh-hhhh.”
“Henrietta,” the Widow said. She stepped toward him, raising eyebrows and her arms, searching his face, his lean body, for some recognition. “You can’t be . . .”
“I . . . am . . . Logan,” he told her, dropped the Enfield, and fell to his knees, sobbing like a lost boy who had just found his favorite auntie.
* * *
She told him that he had grown some, and that he looked real different. Dooley almost rolled his eyes, not about the growing taller and thinner because, well, he did not know how short or how fat Logan Kingsbury had been all those years ago. But different? Hell, yes, he expected that lanky cuss to look different. After all, Dooley had seen a lot of hard cases in his day, a lot of strange birds, and real ugly individuals—that brute Ewing Atkinson, late of the late Dobbs-Handley Gang, came to mind—but Logan Kingsbury topped them all.
The Cincinnati contingent seemed to be knocked into total shock, so when the gangling man dropped to his knees and buried his hands in his eyeballs, letting out gasping sobs and crocodile tears, they just stood there. Dooley didn’t. He moved like a deer, snatched up the Enfield rifle, and stepped a long way out of Logan Kingsbury’s reach. It had to be long, for that man had arms like the tentacles of that big squid Dooley had seen, and even remembered, back when he had been visiting San Francisco on his way to Alaska, where he never even got to.
Dooley did not point the Enfield at Logan Kingsbury, but kept it, more or less, in the general direction of Abercrombie, Hentig, and McCreery. He kept his eyes on those three low-down dogs, too, and positioned himself so that he could see the Widow’s reunion with her nephew. Blue came over and lay down at Dooley’s side.
Which seemed to be just what Logan Kingsbury was doing, too, for he fell to his side and pulled up his knees until he resembled a suckling infant. The Widow moved tentatively, but eventually knelt beside her poor, suffering son-of-a-cur of a nephew, and ran her hands through that mess of a mane of his. Dooley could not help but grimace. He wouldn’t have touched that hair for all the gold in the Black Hills.
“Logan,” she said at last.
“Aunt Henrietta,” he managed to choke out.
“What happened to you?” his aunt inquired.
“I’ve been . . . so . . . alone,” he wailed.
The sobbing stopped almost as soon as it began, and Logan Kingsbury, after some more gentle strokes from his aunt, came up. He sighed, looked over the three Cincinnati men, stared an uncomfortably long time at Miss Sabrina, and gave Dooley only a sideways glance. He did not even appear to notice that the Enfield was in Dooley’s hands. When he looked back at Abercrombie, Hentig, and McCreery, he asked his aunt: “This is all you brought?”
She told him all that had happened, how the party had sent the women and children on to Fetterman City, and how savage Indians had wiped out the rest of those valiant men from the Queen City of the West, but bravely they had walked—although, actually, sometimes, she corrected herself, Mr. Monahan had let Sabrina and herself ride that pretty red horse—for days on end on this treacherous journey to find her favorite nephew.
“Well . . .” The crazy man wet his chapped lips and studied the Ohio contingent again, especially Miss Sabrina, and at length he pushed himself to his feet and looked at Dooley. This time, he appeared to understand that Dooley held the Enfield, perhaps because it was now pointed at his midsection.
“You ain’t fer from Slim Pickin’s,” he said, speaking to his aunt, and maybe the men from the Blue Chip City, but keeping his eyes on Dooley. “We can walk to the camp from here.”
Obviously, Dooley thought, unless they wanted to ride General Grant one or two at a time, come back to pick up one or two more, and so forth.
“Is there . . .” Mr. McCreery’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Is there . . . still gold there?”
“Not much,” Logan Kingsbury answered. “It’s pretty much played out.” He looked across the grasslands, concerned now, and turned around. This time, he stared at Dooley. “Best we get out of this open country. Get back to Slim Pickin’s. Don’t like to be out here. Indians been on the prod.” When he faced his aunt again, he smiled. “Now, Aunt Henrietta, I gots to warn you. Slim Pickin’s ain’t much to look at.”
“Like you are?” Dooley said underneath his breath.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Logan Kingsbury’s description of Slim Pickings, Wyoming Territory, was an understatement. Not much to look at. There wasn’t anything to it.
No streets. No livery stable. No outhouses. Not even a building, unless you counted what once had been a Sibley tent until branches and wind and whatever had ripped off most of the canvas. That’s where Logan Kingsbury slept, and Logan Kingsbury had no bedroll. Trash, ranging from broken tools to the unused skins of carcasses, to the bones of those dead animals, and remnants of... whatever they once had been . . . were strewn around the campground, which was not even cleared. Blue wandered over and nosed a few bones, but before Dooley could call the shepherd back to him, the dog backed away, turned quickly, and jogged back to Dooley’s side. That troubled Dooley because Blue was like most dogs, and would eat anything that was put in front of him or he happened to find in front of him, or buried. What kind of bones would a dog not eat?
A cloud passed over the sun, turning Slim Pickings into a mighty dark place—not that it wasn’t shadowy and eerie before.
The trees here might not be thick, but they certainly were plentiful. Stretching for the clouds, the pines and conifers rustled overhead in the wind. Dooley tethered General Grant to a sapling, and studied more of Slim Pickings.
He could see the gray ash from fires, and decided that was where Logan Kingsbury did his cooking, and that although the demented man had not troubled himself to build a cabin—despite the abundance of trees—he had managed to chop down some firewood. A stack, not enough to get through a winter, not even enough to get to winter, stood beyond his, ahem, tent, and pinecones and other bits of kindling had been piled up against one of the trees that served as a holder for the wood pile.
A creek zigzagged through the area, flowing at a pretty good rate for this time of year. Well, that was a good thing. They had a supply of water, but General Grant would need something to graze other than pine needles, saplings, and old animal bones.
The cloud blew away, and the sun’s rays managed to creep through parts of the trees overhead, but to Dooley Monahan, Slim Pickings remained a mighty dark place.
* * *
Josiah Hentig, Al Abercrombie, Homer McCreery, and even the Widow Kingsbury spent the next morning along the creek, panning for gold with plates they found strewn about the camp, while Logan Kingsbury slept in. Dooley cleaned the guns, reloaded them, and put together a lean-to for shelter, using the tools Logan Kingsbury had stored—if you would call leaning shovels and axes against a pine “stored.”
A rake had been lying on the ground near the trash heap, the prongs facing upward—dangerous, Dooley’s pa had always told him—so Dooley picked it up and began cleaning up the mess. He had raked much of the debris that he figured he could not use into the heap when he smelled coffee. He turned to find Miss Sabrina Granby holding two steaming cups. Dooley had been so focused on his work that he had not even seen Miss Sabrina stoke the fire and brew the coffee.
He took the cup she offered him, and drank. Then he thought of something and asked, “Where did you find coffee?”
She gestured toward a sinkhole between rocks and trees. “Over there. I guess that’s where he”—she nodded at Logan Kingsbury—“keeps his supplies.”
“What else?”
He did not wait for her answer, but set the rake down—prongs down, so no one would step on it and have the handle fly up to break a nose—and walked toward the shallow impression in the ground. Miss Sabrina told him what she had found as he walked, and, sure enough, Dooley found nothing extra, and not much, except the Arbuckles’, that would do them any good here.
“What a mess,” Dooley said, and drank more c
offee.
“I don’t see how he lived here for so long,” Miss Sabrina said.
“I wouldn’t call this living.”
She pointed back deeper into the woods. “I found a corral,” she said. “Well, not much of one, but it was definitely a corral. But no horses. Or mules. I guess . . . maybe they ran off . . . or . . . maybe . . . Indians?”
“Maybe,” Dooley said. He wasn’t going to explain about some of the bones he had found in the trash pile. Dooley drank more coffee to wash down that bitter taste that began to develop in his mouth. Several men had told him that horsemeat wasn’t bad, but mule meat was something better.
“Let’s put General Grant in that corral,” Dooley said.
And that led to the first building put up, if you didn’t count the lean-to, in Slim Pickings.
* * *
It started out as one log cabin, and not much of a log cabin. But they had axes and hatchets and saws, and Dooley told them later that day that they would need shelter. “It can snow in this country in June and July,” he told them, “and we’ve got just my horse.” He made sure they understood that it was his horse, and that he had done his job, had gotten them to Slim Pickings, and could leave anytime he chose. Not that he would leave a fine figure of a woman like Miss Sabrina Granby alone in this country.
“But the gold!” Mr. Hentig complained.
Dooley rolled his eyes. They had panned all day and had found maybe a tenth of an ounce of dust—or so the Widow had boasted. Dooley wouldn’t argue with the Widow, but he doubted if they had any dust, or if these Cincinnatians would even know gold if it wasn’t a double eagle.
“Work in shifts,” Dooley said. “Pan in the morning while others are working on a cabin, then do her the other way around.”
“You should be our marshal, Dooley,” said Logan Kingsbury, who had finally awakened.
“I’ll pick our marshal,” Mr. Abercrombie barked.
“Noooooo,” Logan Kingsbury said. “Slim Pickin’s is my town. Dooley. Yeah, Dooley. He’s the marshal.”
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