Hunters

by James Reasoner

  Bledsoe’s control finally broke. He yelled, “They attacked us, damn it! We didn’t have any choice but to shoot them!”

  “Yeah, we did,” McGinty said. “Hell, Colonel, we outnumbered ’em two to one, and there wasn’t a rifle among ’em, only bows and arrows. If we’d held our fire, they probably would’ve turned and run after they made that little dash at us to save their pride.”

  Bledsoe jabbed a finger at McGinty. “You don’t know that! You might’ve got an arrow in the guts, McGinty, you ever think about that?” He swung toward Bill and glared. “You think you’re so damned high and mighty because you’ve got that star pinned to your shirt! You’re nothing but a small-town badge toter! Don’t you dare tell me what we should have done!”

  “I’m not tellin’ you anything, Colonel, except what Spotted Dog told me,” Bill said. “He wants you and your men, and he intends to have you, one way or another. He doesn’t have anything to lose anymore, either, because from what he told me, he and his warriors wiped out a cavalry patrol a few days ago. The army’s gonna hunt them down no matter what they do now, so they might as well go ahead and attack the town if it comes to that.”

  “Well, what do you expect us to do?” Bledsoe asked. “You think we should go out there and surrender to those savages so they can torture us to death? You’d condemn us to that in order to save your town?”

  “Don’t push me too hard, Colonel,” Bill warned. “You might get an answer you don’t want to hear.” He sighed. “But no, I don’t reckon I expect you to do that.” He looked over at Costigan. “What do you have to say about this, Mr. Costigan?”

  “Leave Ward out of it,” McGinty said before Costigan could answer. “He’s the only one who’s not to blame for any of it. He wasn’t even there when it happened.”

  Costigan smiled. “Thanks, Dave, but I have sins of my own I’ve been carrying around. I reckon we all do.” He turned to Bill. “I’ll stick with my friends, Marshal, no matter what happens.”

  Perry Monroe had been listening the conversation. Now he spoke up, saying, “Bill, we can’t let those savages wipe out the town, whether they were wronged or not. Even if we manage to fight them off, innocent people will be killed.”

  “More than likely,” Bill agreed.

  Bledsoe crossed his arms defiantly over his thick chest. “We’re not going to turn ourselves over to the Indians. That’s final. And if you try to run us out of town so they can kill us, then you’re not men. You’re cowards! Craven cowards!”

  Bill looked at the clock on the wall. It was after noon, but several hours still remained until the deadline Spotted Dog had given him.

  “Get out,” he said to Bledsoe.

  “I just told you—”

  “Not out of town. Just out of here. I’ve got to think about this. Maybe you should go talk to your men and see how they feel about it.”

  “I make the decisions for my party.”

  Bill shook his head. “I reckon maybe it’s gone beyond that. Get out and let me think.”

  Bledsoe looked like he wanted to argue some more, but he turned on his heel and stalked out of the mercantile. McGinty slid down from the counter and started to follow the colonel.

  “You comin’, Ward?” he asked Costigan.

  “I’ll be along,” Costigan said. “I want to talk to the marshal, if that’s all right.”

  Bill nodded. Costigan seemed to have the coolest head among the buffalo hunters. Maybe he could come up with some way out of this.

  When Bledsoe and McGinty were gone, Costigan went on, “Nobody in Redemption is going to blame you if you turn us over to the Pawnee, Marshal.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Bill said. “I’d still have to live with myself.”

  Perry Monroe said, “Maybe we should put it to a vote.”

  Bill shook his head. “I’m not gonna make people vote to save themselves by sacrificing somebody else. There’s got to be some other way.”

  Eden put her hand on his shoulder. “You can’t take it all on yourself, either,” she said. “That’s not right. You’re not responsible for…for…”

  “For the whole town?” Bill asked with a faint smile. “I sort of am. And that’s the hell of it, right there.”

  Fraker stood just inside the entrance of Smoot’s Saloon, peering out over the batwings and holding a mug of beer in his left hand. He sipped from it now and then as he looked along the street.

  From here he couldn’t see the barricades at the western end of Main Street, but the muzzles of numerous rifles and shotguns sticking out of windows were visible. In the hour or so since the Indians had shown up, nothing had happened, but nobody in town was relaxing.

  Macauley came up beside Fraker and said, “Anything going on out there?”

  “Nope.”

  Quietly enough so that no one else in the saloon could overhear, Macauley said, “This is it, Jake. Our last chance to hit that bank.”

  Fraker nodded. “I know. But right now all we can do is wait it out.”

  “I’m sick and tired of hearing that.”

  Fraker jerked his head toward his partner. “Then why don’t you go out there and do something about it?” he said. When Macauley didn’t rise to the challenge, Fraker sneered. “That’s what I thought.”

  “I’m tired of putting up with you, too,” Macauley said. “When this is over, we’re going our separate ways.”

  “Fine with me.” Fraker took a long swig of the lukewarm beer. The tension of the past few days had driven a wedge between him and Macauley. He knew it, and he didn’t particularly care.

  Everything ended, including partnerships.

  But not until they had looted that bank.

  If the damn redskins would just go ahead and attack, thought Fraker, then he and Macauley could make their move. For now, though, the Pawnee seemed content to just sit out there and make nearly everybody in town scared enough to shit their drawers.

  Fraker had tried to nudge things along once before, and it hadn’t worked.

  But maybe if he tried again, this time it would turn out better.

  He was mulling that over when a commotion suddenly broke out at the western end of the street. Fraker leaned forward eagerly as he heard the swift rataplan of hoofbeats from that direction.

  Maybe this was it at last.

  Bill was in the marshal’s office with Mordecai Flint, Josiah Hartnett, Judge Dunaway, and Mayor Fleming. They had spent the past hour hashing out every possible solution they could think of.

  The problem was they had only two real options: surrender the buffalo hunters to the Indians, or refuse and defend the town against the inevitable attack.

  Flint said, “Maybe one of us ought to go out yonder and talk to the chief again, see if there’s anything he’d accept short of turnin’ over Bledsoe and his bunch. I don’t mind doin’ it if you want me to, Marshal.”

  “I appreciate that, Mordecai,” Bill said, “but if anybody goes to parley with Spotted Dog again, I reckon it ought to be me. I’m the marshal, and I’m the one he talked to before.”

  Roy Fleming said, “You may be the marshal, Bill, but I’m the mayor of Redemption. Maybe I should ride out there.”

  Bill was surprised that Fleming would volunteer to place himself in danger like that. He could tell from the look in the mayor’s eyes that Fleming was mighty scared. But he had made the offer anyway, and Bill respected him for that.

  “Sorry, Mayor,” he said. “You’re needed here in town.”

  “So are you,” Judge Dunaway said. “You may not realize it, Bill, but you’ve won over pretty much the whole town, first with the way you handled that outlaw gang a while back, and now with the steady hand you’ve displayed in this crisis. Everybody looks to you for leadership now.”

  Maybe the judge was right, but Bill couldn’t help but wonder how the hell such a thing had happened to a shiftless Texas cowboy.

  “We’re just goin’ around and around in circles—”

  The rap
id thud of running footsteps interrupted him. One of the townsmen appeared in the open doorway of the marshal’s office and reported breathlessly, “Somebody’s ridin’ out to the Indians! Looks like one of those buffalo hunters!”

  Bill had been leaning against the desk. He straightened and hurried out onto the boardwalk, followed by the other men in the office.

  “Who is it?” he asked. “Colonel Bledsoe?”

  “No,” the man replied, not surprising Bill at all. He knew better than to expect the colonel to sacrifice himself. “I think it’s that fella called Costigan.”

  Bill stiffened. He hadn’t seen Costigan since leaving him at the mercantile with Eden and her father an hour or so earlier. He had supposed that Costigan either stayed at the store or manned one of the defensive positions.

  Bill ran out into the street so he could peer past the barricades at the western end. He saw the lone figure on horseback that was now several hundred yards away from town.

  He had left his horse saddled when he came back from the parley with Spotted Dog. The animal’s reins were looped around the hitch rail in front of the marshal’s office. Bill jerked them loose and swung up into the saddle.

  Flint grabbed the horse’s bridle. “What the hell are you doin’, Marshal?”

  “That’s what I figure on askin’ Costigan,” Bill said. He jerked on the reins and pulled the horse loose from the deputy’s grip. His heels dug into the animal’s flanks and sent it leaping forward.

  He didn’t know how Eden had realized something was going on, but she stepped out onto the mercantile’s porch as he galloped past.

  “Bill!”

  Her cry tore at his heart, but he didn’t slow down. He heard more yelling behind him but didn’t look back.

  Costigan must have heard him coming. The buffalo hunter reined in and half turned his horse before Bill reached him. Dust swirled as Bill brought his mount to a halt a few feet from Costigan’s.

  “What are you doing here, Marshal? Go back to town.”

  “What are you doin’ here?” Bill demanded. He glanced at the grim line of Pawnee warriors not much more than two hundred yards away. “You’re liable to get yourself killed.”

  “That’s the idea,” Costigan said. “I’m going to offer myself to Spotted Dog in the hope that he’ll spare everybody else.”

  “That’s loco!” Bill burst out. “You didn’t even have anything to do with killin’ those kids!”

  Costigan shook his head. “Spotted Dog doesn’t know that. He wants vengeance. Maybe I’ll provide enough. If I don’t…” Costigan shrugged. “It was worth a try, anyway.”

  “No, it’s not.” Bill glanced at the Pawnee again. His heart jumped as he saw that Spotted Dog had started his pony toward them, trailed by a couple of warriors. “Damn it, he’s comin’ out to see what this is all about. We got to light a shuck for town right now if we’re gonna have a chance to get back!”

  Even then, it would be close, Bill thought. Costigan’s play might have cost them both their lives.

  “You go on back,” the buffalo hunter said. “I’ll stay here. That’ll keep Spotted Dog curious enough he probably won’t come after you until he finds out what I want.”

  “Why? Why in the world would you do this?”

  “I told you I’ve got my own sins, Marshal. I’ve been running away from them for a long time. I’m tired of running.”

  Bill shook his head. “I don’t know what you did, Mr. Costigan, but it’s not worth givin’ up your life for Bledsoe and his bunch.”

  “Dave McGinty’s my friend. He’s worth it,” Costigan insisted. “And so are all those innocent people in Redemption.”

  Bill couldn’t argue with that.

  Actually, he couldn’t argue with anything.

  Spotted Dog was there.

  Chapter 27

  Fraker and Macauley made their way along the street, listening to the hubbub of conversation around them. It didn’t take long for Fraker to realize what was happening. That kid marshal from Texas and one of the buffalo hunters had ridden out to talk with the Indians again.

  “You think they came up with some way to get the redskins to leave, Jake?” Macauley asked. “That would ruin everything.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Fraker said. “Come on. I want to get up there where we can see what’s goin’ on.”

  As they approached one of the barricades, Fraker could see that the two riders were stopped several hundred yards from the edge of town. He asked a heavyset older man, “What are they doing out there?”

  “I’m not certain,” the man replied, “but I’d wager it’s something incredibly foolish…or incredibly brave. Perhaps both.”

  The marshal’s pretty blond wife ran up to the barricade, trailed by her father, who was puffing for breath.

  “Judge,” she said to the older man, “has Bill gone crazy?”

  “That buffalo hunter Costigan rode out there first. The marshal went after him, to try to bring him back, I suppose.”

  “What’s Mr. Costigan trying to do?”

  The judge shook his head. “I don’t know, but I can venture a guess. I think he’s going to offer himself to the Indians as a sacrifice, in hopes that they’ll ride away and leave everyone else alone.”

  Eden Monroe’s hand went to her mouth. “Dear God,” she said. “And Bill’s out there with him. What if the Indians take both of them?”

  The same possibility had occurred to Fraker, and he didn’t like it one damned bit. If the Indians rode away without attacking the town, it would ruin everything he had planned. He had to stop it from happening somehow.

  His mind returned to the idea he had been pondering earlier. He caught Macauley’s eye and motioned with his head. While everybody else at the barricade was concentrating on what was happening out on the prairie, Fraker and Macauley began drifting back away from the barrels.

  “What do we do now?” Macauley asked in a murmur.

  “We make sure this turns out the way we want it to,” Fraker said. “Come on.”

  “Keep your hand away from your gun, Marshal,” Costigan said as he and Bill faced Spotted Dog and the other two Pawnee warriors.

  “You’re not tellin’ me anything I don’t already know, Mr. Costigan.”

  “I take it the chief speaks English?”

  Before Bill could answer, Spotted Dog said, “I speak the white man’s tongue.” His scornful tone indicated what he thought of it, too. “You look like one of the men we seek.”

  “I’m a buffalo hunter,” Costigan said.

  He glanced over at Bill, who understood the meaning behind the look. Costigan was warning him not to say anything about how he hadn’t participated in the slaughter of the young Pawnee braves.

  “You killed our young men. Their blood cries out for vengeance and justice.”

  “And that’s what I’m here to offer you. Take me, Spotted Dog, and spare the others.”

  “All must die!” the war chief thundered.

  “And to get that you’ll sacrifice many of your other warriors? The town is well-defended. There are almost as many men with rifles as you have in your party, and they will fight.”

  “Many will die on both sides,” Spotted Dog declared, “but justice will be done. And as I told this one”—a contemptuous nod toward Bill—“I and my people are doomed to die for what we did to the yellowlegs.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But if you take me and ride away to fight another day, who knows what will happen in the future?”

  Spotted Dog sat there glaring at Costigan for a long moment. Finally, he turned and spoke in Pawnee to the two men with him, who replied in the same tongue. They were older men, too, and Bill figured they were the war chief’s most trusted lieutenants.

  The discussion was an animated one. From the corner of his mouth, Bill asked Costigan, “You savvy any of what they’re sayin’?”

  “Not a damn bit,” Costigan answered, tight-lipped.

  At last Spotted Dog turned back to the two white
men. “You know you will be going to your death?” he said to Costigan.

  The buffalo hunter nodded. “I understand.”

  “And your dying will be long and painful.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else,” Costigan said.

  Spotted Dog’s eyes narrowed. “You are a brave man.”

  “No. Just a tired one.”

  The war chief took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “All men must die,” he said. “But the fortunate ones choose the manner of their deaths. My warriors would rather die fighting the hated yellowlegs than farmers and shopkeepers.”

  Anger welled up inside Bill. Spotted Dog didn’t have to make it sound like the citizens of Redemption were beneath contempt. But he kept the feeling under control, not wanting to disrupt what was happening.

  At the same time, he felt sick…because he knew that if Spotted Dog agreed to the bargain, he would let Costigan go with the Indians. The guilt over that might haunt him the rest of his life, but he had to think about Eden and everybody else back in the settlement.

  “You will come with us,” Spotted Dog continued. “We will leave this place, and you will die in agony and dishonor. This is the bargain you would make, buffalo hunter?”

  “This is the bargain I would make.”

  Costigan’s voice trembled. Just a little, but enough for Bill to hear it.

  Of course Costigan was scared. He had to be, unless he was insane. But it appeared that he wasn’t backing down.

  “The other men who killed our children, justice will come to them in its own time,” Spotted Dog said.

  “It always does, sooner or later.”

  The war chief lifted his pony’s reins. “Come.”

  Costigan glanced over at Bill. “Say so long to McGinty for me, will you, Marshal?”

  Bill had to swallow hard before he could answer. “Sure.”

  Costigan smiled and said, “I’m glad you decided to be reasonable about this.”

  “I’ve got a whole townful of people back there to protect. There’s nothing else I can do.”